LYSANDER ARCH part 1
by Chameleon2
Summary: Adrian feels his body is somehow falling apart. Lysander discovers what his father is and that he has some rather cool powers himself. He and Christian go to Russia to meet with disaster.


Firstly, thank all you guys who gave me feedback! You are my bread and  
water for inspiration. Alright, another story about the Tepes family. No  
Dracula in this one, but I fear he will return someday... sigh, I can't seem  
to get rid of him.  
  
This is a sequal to Children, although my friend Cody wrote another sequal,  
in which the births of Lysander's brother Alcander and Sidra Belmont are  
mentioned. However, there are some things in his story I do not agree with,  
so I discard them. His is a good story nevertheless, and you can find it on  
the Castlevania Dungeon site.  
  
This story, Alucard fans, will not for the biggest part deal with your  
hero. I found out that I liked Lysander much better, since he was a lot  
more chaotic. Therefore, I focussed on Christian and Lysander more than on  
Adrian. Don't worry, he'll still be present in the first part. There will  
be the necessary Alucard-bashing. There will be blood and tears, and  
growing darkness. I hope you'll enjoy reading it. For comments, please mail  
me at Chameleon@freeler.nl  
  
On with:  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER  
  
  
  
  
  
One drizzly autumn morning, Lysander enthusiastically waved his brother  
good bye and good riddance as Alcander left for a stay with his  
grandparents, a good hour ride away. It would be great not to have the  
pesky boy around, following him, bugging him and being generally  
irritating. As all siblings, the two brothers dearly loved each other, and  
as all siblings, they also wished each other strangled on a good day. The  
fact that Cander was younger and smaller than his brother gave Lysander  
some power over him, but unfortunately Cander grew much faster than him,  
and he feared he would grow over his head before the year was done. It  
wasn't fair! Alcander should listen to him, instead of laugh at him. And  
listen, he seldom did.  
  
Therefore, Lysander's smile was positively radiant as he turned his back on  
the disappearing carriage, and he rubbed his hands in contentment. One  
brother less. Great. That meant he could have a nice little talk with his  
parents without interference, about what he would study once he had  
finished school. Every few days it was the same; Maria wanted him to study  
history, Adrian couldn't care less, and Lysander himself had no clue but  
for the certain knowledge that he did NOT want to be a historian.  
  
  
  
This evening, during diner, Alcander's absence goaded Maria once more into  
the debate of historicism, and how much he would learn if he could but find  
the interest, but Lysander aggressively pointed his fork.  
  
"This is exactly what I'm referring to. All the history students can talk  
about is things that happened in the past. A LONG time in the past. I'm  
sorry Mom, but I really cannot see myself drowning myself in books reading  
about the great heroics of a certain mister Bla in Belgrade in 1257 or the  
significance of the discovery of gunpowder in...well a long time ago."  
  
"You might learn something interesting," Adrian murmured, shifting on his  
chair. He looked out of the window with longing. Lysander gaped at him,  
diner forgotten.  
  
"But that's the whole point! It isn't interesting! It's OLD! Yes, I like to  
be able to keep up conversation during an official diner, or a party," his  
nose wrinkled with disgust at the mentioning of the word party, "but mostly  
that conversation is about news, not olds. And then, just as I find a  
girl...or man, of course," Maria hid a smile behind a piece of bread, "who  
likes to talk about what happens in the rest of Europe, one of these dusty  
students rises out of a flower pot and begins to spit out the miracles of  
the crusades, ruining the whole evening. Really, if I...dad?"  
  
Adrian had stood up, breathing a little fast.  
  
"What is it?" He shot his wife a quick smile, again glancing outside.  
  
"I think I'll go outside for a bit."  
  
"What's wrong, Dad? Is it something I said?" His father shook his head.  
Somehow Lysander had the idea he had...changed a bit, unnoticeable, but on  
the inside.  
  
"No, it's all right. I just need a bit of fresh air." He walked to the door  
with slow, determined paces. As the door closed, the steps grew faster, and  
when the front door slammed close Maria knew he was running as fast as he  
could. She sighed, and caught her son looking at her, completely perplexed.  
  
"What was that about?" She went back to her meal.  
  
"You heard him. He wanted some fresh air."  
  
"But it's RAINING!"  
  
"I know. Eat, Sander. Patrushka will never forgive you if you let it grow  
cold." Lysander looked at his father's half-full plate and arched an  
eyebrow.  
  
"Patrushka will have dad's hide then." He played with his food for a while  
and said accusingly that Maria wasn't eating either. "Where is he, mom? Why  
did he run away like that? What's he doing? It's freezing outside."  
  
"You know he likes to go running sometimes."  
  
"Yes, and so do I, but not at night, and not in this weather!" He pushed  
his chair back, went to the window and looked outside. The wind flung rain  
against the glass with the sound of hailstones-maybe they WERE hailstones,  
and it was so dark even he with his exceptional sight could not see more  
than a few feet into the garden. Then one of the clouds made way for the  
moon, and he whistled softly.  
  
"Full moon, mom."  
  
"Naturally." He turned to face her.  
  
"Why do you say that?" Maria shrugged.  
  
"The moon makes him nervous."  
  
"You mean he's a lunatic?"  
  
"Of course not!"  
  
"Then what do you mean? O for God's sake, I'm not a child, don't be so  
mysterious about it! What's wrong with him?"  
  
She took him in with those green eyes of hers, visibly wondering whether  
she would tell him or not. Then she shook her head.  
  
"It's up to him to explain. No, Lysander, don't go stamping your foot, it's  
not my secret to tell. He'll tell you when he comes back."  
  
"Is he a werewolf or something?" the young man asked, half jokingly, half  
serious. Maria smiled.  
  
"No, sweetling, he is not a werewolf. Go on, finish your dinner. Come on."  
Lysander hesitantly did as she asked.  
  
  
  
The chiming of the clock was drowned in the wind howling around the  
chimney.  
  
"It's horrible out there." He said in a small voice. In his mind's eye he  
could see his father's tall, thin figure crumbling under a ripped-off  
branch, beaten to death by hailstones, lying unconscious in the mud,  
catching his death. "He should have been back long ago."  
  
"He'll be fine. It takes a few hours to spend all that energy." Yet she  
winced as the fire danced in the draft and rain beat the roof of their  
house. He would be soaked to the bone when he returned, and although she  
knew he could not become ill it unnerved her to think about him being out  
in the storm without protection.  
  
'Damn it, I wish he could control himself better. What if he gets stuck  
under a tree...we'll never find him.'  
  
'Stop it. He does this every few months and he never got hurt.'  
  
'Did they put wolf snares in the woods this year?'  
  
'Stop it!'  
  
She focussed her attention on her book, but when she read a line she  
couldn't even remember what book it was.  
  
"What energy?" She closed the novel.  
  
"The energy you both need to burn away at times it's most inappropriate."  
she snapped, and immediately was sorry. He was just as worried as she.  
"Look, he will return in the morning, he always does. Ask him then."  
  
"He does this more often? But I didn't know..."  
  
"You weren't the only one. It's not anyone's business." The clock chimed  
again. "It's almost one. We'd better go to bed. He'll be back tomorrow."  
  
"And if he is not?"  
  
"Then we will go and find him. But I'm sure he'll be here, he always is."  
  
  
  
Lysander dreamed, that night. In his sleep, he was in a castle, talking  
to-of all things!-a bat that was hanging upside-down from the nose of a  
statue. Somehow he knew the bat could tell him everything he ever wanted to  
know if he asked the right questions, but every time he wanted to ask  
something the statue shook its head, causing the bat to swing wildly, and  
said it was the wrong question.  
  
"Then what IS the right question?" he cried exasperated at last. The statue  
smiled broadly, showing large canines.  
  
"That was the right question!" it boomed. "You finally understand, don't  
you?"  
  
"I guess so..."  
  
"Well, ask then!" Lysander searched his brain for questions, but the only  
one he found was an absurd one, the only one he already knew. But the  
statue was waiting, and he knew it would eat the bat if he did not hurry.  
  
"Who am I?" The bat blinked.  
  
"What kind of question is that?" the statue grumbled, but the bat began to  
speak...gibberish.  
  
"I can't understand!"  
  
"Of course you can't, it's hanging upside-down. If you go and stand on your  
head you will understand it much better." Lysander hesitated. "Hurry,  
before he's finished." The boy placed both hands on the floor, swung up his  
legs and precariously tried to hold his balance. It wasn't stable, but at  
least he could follow the bat as it went on and on about who he was and  
ticked its paws on the statue's nose.  
  
"Stop it!" Lysander yelled, "I can't hear you if you keep ticking like  
that!"  
  
The ticking became knocking.  
  
"Stop it." He grabbed his pillow and covered his head with it. "I cannot  
hear you..." and he sat up, realising he was awake. It took him a moment to  
return to the here and now, then he heard the pounding again, and jumped  
out of bed.  
  
"Dad!" It was still dark, couldn't be later than seven o'clock. Late  
enough! If he ever lectures me about coming home late I'll remind him of  
this! His feet thumped on the stairs; Patrushka shot him a warning look as  
she ran for the door to open it. He almost pushed her aside.  
  
"Dad?" But it wasn't his father. On the doorstep stood Richter Belmont,  
nose, lips and ears purple with cold. "Do you know where dad is?"  
  
"Let the gentleman come in," Patrushka rebuked him, "so we can close the  
door and hold the warmth inside." Lysander, in effect, grabbed his uncle by  
the arm and hauled him inside. Richter had NODDED.  
  
"Could you make some coffee, Patra? I'm sure my uncle is almost frozen to  
death?"  
  
"If you could..."  
  
"Of course, sir!" Patrushka said cheerfully, moving her huge bulk to the  
kitchen. As soon as she was out of sight Lysander pounced on his uncle.  
  
"You know where he is?"  
  
"Yes, I do. Please let me g-get this coat off. It's hell outside. You can't  
see for the snow. Damn, I fear I woke your mother as well."  
  
"Doesn't matter." Maria smiled. She pulled her chamber robe tighter around  
her shoulders. "You said you know where he is?" He nodded again, warming  
his hands in front of the hearth.  
  
"This morning Ivan found a very big wolf in the wood-shed. He almost shot  
him, I was lucky to be awake and stop him."  
  
"A wolf!" Lysander yelled, "here! In your shed?"  
  
"Wolf." Maria sighed in relief. "Is he all right?" Lysander looked at her  
strangely. It was only then that Richter understood that the boy did not  
have a clue about his father's powers. For all he knew, the 'wolf' could  
have EATEN his dad.  
  
"He's fine," he answered, "just sleeping. I couldn't wake him up, and  
there's some blood in his pelt, but I don't think it's his, and if it is,  
it has healed already."  
  
"What are you talking about? What has this wolf to do with dad?" Richter  
glanced at his sister-in-law, and she shook her head slowly.  
  
"It's HIS secret. You'll see if we get him. Is it possible to use the  
sleigh?"  
  
"It's not possible not to..."  
  
"Yesterday you swore he wasn't a werewolf..."  
  
"Darling, he ISN'T a werewolf, but he does have powers. You'll see.  
  
Now, o, there's your coffee. I'll go and get the sleigh ready...damn it, I  
hope Grejcnim can find his way through the snow, he should have been here  
long ago."  
  
"I'll help." Lysander volunteered. She smiled.  
  
"You go and get dressed. Richter can help me until you're ready."  
  
"You need to put on warm clothes too, it's freezing."  
  
The Tepeses sighed in a remarkable identical way. Richter took a sip of  
coffee to hide his face.  
  
"Come on, he'll wait. If you ask me he'll be out most of the day. Take your  
time." Mother and son both stood up and ran to their rooms, determined to  
take as little time as was possible. 'Exhausting. No wonder the poor man  
needs to be away for a while.' He smiled in his cup. If anyone was lucky, it  
was Adrian.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
More than two hours later they finally reached the Belmont estate,  
thoroughly chilled and, in Richter's case, frowning in pain. His head had  
healed beautifully after the damage it had suffered fifteen years ago, but  
on frosty days like this the cold seemed to seep into the scars and push  
them apart. The older he got, the more often it happened, and there were  
times he simply blinked out altogether, staring blindly into space until  
someone shook him awake again. It was just as well that the last few years  
had been peaceful; vampire hunting was something he would never be able to  
do again. Not anymore.  
  
When they arrived at the house, the door opened with a bang and a tall,  
broad-shouldered young man ran out to grab the horses.  
  
"Hooooooo!" he called, grinning widely and opening the sleigh-door for his  
aunt. "What an amount of snow! I've never seen quite so much in years."  
  
"Riff." Maria teased. She reached out to ruffle his curls-a habit that  
never died. Neither did his habit of dodging the caress.  
  
"Christian." he corrected with an even wider smile. He held out his arms to  
Lysander. The boy frowned, he never liked to be reminded he was still so  
small. "O come on, Sander. Don't you want to see the wolf?" Lysander  
sighed, and suffered himself to being lifted out of the coach.  
  
Next to Christian, almost never called Riff anymore safe for during spells  
of anger or affection, Lysander looked like a six-year-old. The eldest  
Belmont child had inherited all the physical traits of his father; he was a  
tall, handsome, flirtatious youth with an endless amount of bouncy energy  
he spent on horse riding, running about, hunting and making love to his  
countless girlfriends. Richter shook his head about that last thing, but it  
was no use prohibiting him because it was impossible to be mad at him for  
longer than five minutes.  
  
"I don't get them pregnant, do I?" Christian would say innocently. "If I  
do, you can throw me out, but until then...nobody complains, right?" He  
avoided arguments as skilfully as he avoided the hands aiming for his  
hair-what it was nobody knew, but women were always burying their hands in  
his curls. He once cut it off, and they had found other things to ruffle,  
but since that got him in situations that were, to say it softly, at the  
least a bit ... tedious, he let it grow back again-and bounced through his  
life like he had as a child.  
  
Ever since he had adopted Lysander as a brother at the age of six, the two  
had had some sort of bond connecting them to each other. For a long time  
the five years in between had not been a barrier; as soon as Lysander was  
old enough to walk, Riff took him along, protecting him when the games got  
rough and defending him when his friends said he was too small to  
participate.  
  
"He's my friend," he used to say, "and if you don't want him in, I'm out  
too!" It was a safe thing to say, Riff was very popular. So Lysander played  
hide and seek with children twice his age, he skinned his knees with  
football, caught frogs and snails and ran when they raced against each  
other. In running, nobody could best him. Even as a very small child he was  
faster than the others, his thin, wiry body being so light it took no  
effort at all to carry it on his long legs. That was one of the things in  
which he resembled his father, that uncanny swiftness.  
  
It was, Lysander thought in despair, probably the only thing he had  
inherited. Apart from his fair skin that burned so quickly in the sun, that  
was. Unlike Adrian, Lysander was small. He hadn't grown an inch since his  
tenth year, not up, not in the width. Unless they knew him and his  
merciless wit, people tended to treat him like a child, or even worse, a  
girl! For some time, when the last baby-fat still rounded his cheeks and  
his extraordinary eyes gave him an angelic appearance, everybody mistook  
him for a girl. He had thrown a temper tantrum that rocked the house and  
cut his hair so short it was no more than fuzz, glaring at people so  
viciously that mistake was never made again. A year later the effeminate  
look was gone, the chubbiness eaten away, but grow he did not. Now he would  
soon be sixteen and while Christian was taller than Richter, Lysander  
wasn't even big enough to look his mother in the eye!  
  
"You just have to be patient," Adrian used to say. "With me it was just  
like that on that age. You'll see, you'll shoot up like a sapling once  
you're eighteen, and you won't stop until you're half a head taller than  
me."  
  
"Eighteen! But I'll be an adult at eighteen!"  
  
"Adults can be small too, Sander."  
  
When he was young, it didn't matter that much; being small was even handy  
in the case of hide and seek, climbing in trees and dodging hits. The older  
he became though, the harder it was on him. Riff had started to develop  
broad shoulders and a beard when he was fourteen. Lysander only got  
thinner. Riff had girls batting their eye-lashes at him. Lysander imagined  
they only smiled with pity.  
  
"But you're such a sweet-looking young man," aunt Annette would say.  
Lysander did not want to be sweet. Lysander wanted to be tall. Lysander  
feared he would be five feet three until he died.  
  
  
  
He pulled away from his cousin as soon as he stood in the snow, but he  
forgot his irritation immediately and followed the man to the shed.  
  
"It's huge!" Christian said excitedly. "You've never seen such an animal,  
and it hasn't moved since we put a blanket over him."  
  
"A blanket?"  
  
"Yeah." He opened the door, dampened his voice. "Mom insisted on it." He  
chuckled. "She was afraid he'd catch cold." Maria smiled. She pushed him  
aside and walked in, then squatted in front of the wolf. Lysander sat down  
beside her.  
  
It WAS a huge wolf, easily as big as a small horse. The colour was odd; a  
mixture of black, white and gray-and a patch of bright blue.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Could you leave us for a while, Christian?" Maria asked. Her nephew arched  
one straight, dark eyebrow.  
  
"Of course, but are you sure? I mean, if he wakes..."  
  
"It will be quite alright. Yes, I'm sure. We'll come in shortly." Richter  
nodded. He took his son's arm and pulled him along.  
  
"They are not in any danger. You know I would not expose them to anything  
if I weren't sure if would not harm them. Come on, you must be as cold as I  
feel."  
  
"But..."  
  
"Go on, we'll come when we're finished."  
  
"Yes, but..." Richter effectively pulled him out of the shed.  
  
  
  
"Mom, is this...is this dad?" Maria smiled, softly stroking the silky fur.  
  
"Yes. I know it seems unbelievable, but it's true." Now he was studying the  
creature up close Lysander did not think it was unbelievable at all; even  
now he could detect a hint of his father's features in the long snout and  
the narrow eyes. But how did he do it? Is it that strange energy that makes  
me want to run and run all the way to Belgrade? Does he feel that too? And  
immediately after that, can I do that too?  
  
"His clothes and hair change to fur," Maria continued, oblivious to his  
wild thoughts, "and all he can do, is roam the woods until he's spent all  
that power. Most of the time he returns home after that, but I think he was  
too tired to do that now. But he wasn't hurt badly, otherwise he would have  
changed form again-yet he's much bigger than he usually is." She patted the  
fluffy head. "At least he's warm now, and safe.  
  
come, shall we go inside and have a cup of coffee before we go home?"  
  
"What about him?"  
  
"O, he'll sleep for some time yet. Chris can help us put him in the coach  
later..."  
  
"I can do that." She smiled.  
  
"Of course. Shall we go?"  
  
Lysander waded through the snow after his mother, carefully stepping in her  
footsteps as she did in Richter's. It was ridiculous, this amount of snow.  
He'd never seen...  
  
"Hey!" he yelled as a snowball hit him straight in the face. A girl's voice  
began to laugh, and he had to duck to avoid another attack.  
  
"Good shot! Hit him again! Come on!"  
  
"Sidrrrraaaa!" Lysander roared. He grabbed a handful of snow and threw it  
in the direction of her voice. Maria hastily went inside.  
  
"I'll call you when the coffee's ready." But he didn't even hear her, for  
he had charged his enemy with the force of a sandstorm. Christian's sister  
was two years younger than he, a whip of a girl with the promise of her  
mother's pure beauty combined with the bounciness of her father. Between  
her and Lysander was raging a mock-war, that had started when the boy had  
once called her tomboy as he found her chasing squirrels in the forest when  
she was ten, while Sidra considered herself a young lady. Ever since, she  
seemed resolved to make him pay for that comment, which only had Lysander  
saying, "I knew it, she's a soldier, not a lady." and deepened their  
friendly quarrel.  
  
The one who had thrown the snow into his face, however, was not Sidra. That  
had been the youngest Belmont, Cill. Nobody knew what that boy's original  
name was, he'd been called Cill since his birth. The eight-year-old was a  
completely different breed. He was quiet, watching the world with his  
large, brown eyes, speaking little and doing even less.  
  
"Cill is a river," Annette sometimes said, "running soundlessly, but deep."  
Cill, in Lysander's opinion, was more like a chipmunk: they continuously  
threw empty nutshells at you, but you could never catch them.  
  
This time, however, he was planning on grabbing him alright!  
  
"Where are you?"  
  
"Ha! As if we'd tell you!" Another ball soared through the air, narrowly  
missing his shoulder. "Come on, Cill, you can do better than that."  
  
"Gotcha." Lysander murmured. In one of the pine trees to the left he saw a  
dash of colour; the red of Sidra's cape. He formed a neat ball between his  
hands, ignoring his freezing fingers, dodged a new projectile and ran, as  
fast as he could to the tree.  
  
"THERE YOU ARE!!" Two high voices cried out in terror as he aimed perfectly  
and covered one flushed cheek with snow. Then he shrieked, more in surprise  
than terror, because Sidra gave one of the branches a jerk so that the snow  
they bore clashed down on him, almost burying him in icy whiteness.  
  
"That'll teach you to pick on younger children than yourself!" the girl  
shouted triumphantly. Lysander did not answer. She looked down, suddenly  
worried. "Hey, Sander, are you alright?" The mound moved. Two bluish hands  
pushed the snow aside.  
  
"Wait here," she instructed her brother, "I'll see what he's up to." He  
nodded, and grasped the limb he was sitting on tighter as the tree shook  
under her movements. More snow fell on Lysander's head.  
  
The girl squatted down next to him, gripping the pants she'd borrowed from  
her brother firmly in one hand to keep them from sliding from her hips.  
  
"Sander?" A deep, evil chuckle rose from the mound. Before she could flee,  
a living avalanche crashed over her and she went to the ground with a loud  
squeak.  
  
"There!" Lysander panted through his chattering teeth. "How like you  
th-this? N-nice and re-f-freshing, isn't it?"  
  
"Get off me!"  
  
"Not b-before you g-give up."  
  
"Lysander!" He grinned, pinning her body down with his own. However cold,  
it was rather nice to lie this way and have her wriggling under him to get  
away.  
  
"Mercy?"  
  
"Never!" She doubled her attempts to get him off her, only succeeding in  
getting ice under her coat. "You brute! Tyrant! Womaniser!"  
  
"Womaniser?" He collapsed in a fit of laughter. "Womaniser, me? If I were a  
womaniser, I'd do this!" and he kissed her smack on the mouth.  
  
Sidra was so flabbergasted she could do no more than stare at him, her  
mouth half open. Never reject an invitation, Lysander thought. He released  
her arms, kissed her again, this time a little more thoroughly. Her  
response made him feel warm inside, especially when she wrapped her arms  
around his neck. Christian wasn't the only one who could seduce a girl...  
  
But he did it without little brothers nearby. Brothers, Lysander knew,  
could be disastrous. Cill proved he was just as irritating as Alcander; a  
well-aimed snowball hit him in the neck and he bit his own tongue with the  
shock. The pain brought him out of his romantic humour. Blood dripped down  
his chin.  
  
"You lithle bafthard!" he cried, blinking tears from his eyes. He spit on  
the snow, making a bright red spot in the whiteness. Sidra grabbed his  
shoulder.  
  
"Are you alright? Let me have a look at it...no, Cill, come down, you've done  
enough throwing."  
  
"Ith's nothing."  
  
"Don't be stubborn, you're bleeding. Let me have a look at it."  
  
"Ith's my thongue," Lysander lisped, obediently sticking out his tongue.  
Two teeth had made a deep gash in the soft flesh, and little drops welled  
up still. Cill looked at him with a certain fear, afraid he had hurt his  
cousin badly. Lysander revelled in their attention.  
  
"I thold you, ith's nothing," he repeated heroically, wincing only slightly  
as he spoke.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Ith's alrighth." He stood up, beating the snow from his clothes. From head  
to toe, he was soaked with icy water. "Thyall we go inthide? I feel cold."  
  
"Sure," Sidra said immediately, and Cill nodded. Both felt sufficiently  
guilty. Good. That would teach them. There was an undeniable amount of  
cockiness in Lysander's stride as he led them to the house.  
  
*  
  
  
  
Later that morning, Maria took her husband, still in wolf form, back to her  
own house. Her son, dressed in one of Christian's shirts and pants, sat  
opposite of her, looking like a boy who had dressed up in his father's  
clothes. Every few minutes he would stick out his tongue and touch it  
gingerly, to see if it was still bleeding. It was not.  
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Doeth he alwayth thleep tho long?" She caressed one of the soft ears,  
smiled when it twitched.  
  
"No, but he does sometimes. You shouldn't worry."  
  
"I don't, I'm juth curiouth."  
  
"You bit your tongue pretty hard, didn't you? maybe you should see a doctor  
and have it stitched." Lysander shrugged.  
  
"Don't think tho. It juth hurth a lithle." Suddenly he laughed. "You  
thyoud've theen Cill'th fathe, he thought he'd ath leatht shoth me."  
  
"He's just a boy, and it was an accident, so you said. Or wasn't it?"  
Another shrug. Lysander's pale cheeks coloured a little. "Wasn't it?"  
  
"No, juth an accidenth." He changed the subject. "I never thee you play  
with dad's ears when he'th human." Maria laughed.  
  
"You know very well he would never allow that. Besides, they're not as soft  
and nice when he's human." They both smiled, and Lysander stroked the wolf  
over the head. It was still fast asleep, it's jaws resting comfortably in  
Maria's lap.  
  
Relaxed, Lysander thought, oddly relaxed. Normally, he always sees  
everything, and however at ease he looks, there's always a tension about  
him, as if he can jump up and react within a second. Now he finally looks  
really peaceful. It were strange thoughts, that made the boy feel  
uncomfortable. He knew his father was different than other men, although  
not precisely why. Only a few years ago, when his mother turned 35, he  
suddenly realised that while his mother had aged, his father had not. That  
came as a shock, the revelation that while Maria was still pretty, she was  
a woman with a few wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, a few gray hairs in  
her golden curls so much like his own, and Adrian looked exactly the same  
as he had ten years ago. Not precisely young, but not old either. His skin  
was smooth and pale, his hair had always been so light it could just as  
well be white; all in all, he looked ageless. Sometimes, there was a  
strange darkness around him, and during those depressions he could sit  
motionless in his chair, so still his flesh could have been marble and his  
eyes amber. Lysander recognised himself sometimes in those eyes when he  
looked in a mirror. He had inherited both his mother's and his father's  
colour of eyes: gold, with a ring of green, and when he was angry he knew  
they sparked as fiercely as Adrian's.  
  
'Well, now I know what it is. He's some kind of sorcerer, or maybe a  
demi-god like Hercules. And that would make me a quatro-god. maybe I can  
change into a wolf too. That would be great!' A broad smile parted his lips  
as he thought about Riff's face if he could show him he could change...it  
would be priceless!  
  
They arrived late that day, held up by the never ending  
snowfall. Grejcnim, who had reached the house only half an hour ago, helped  
carrying the wolf to the house, since it wouldn't wake up. He did not even  
blink. Apparently they had told him the wolf was harmless-or had they?  
Perhaps the whole family but Lysander and Riff knew that Adrian Tepes could  
change into a canine.  
  
"You know?" the boy asked as the brawny man carefully eased the beast down  
in front of the fire. Grejcnim smiled behind his large, graying moustache.  
  
"I should, little one. I plucked him out of a trap one day."  
  
"So, in fact, everyone knows but me."  
  
"Now darling, that's not true," Maria interjected. "Apart from your aunt  
and uncle, Grejcnim and myself you are the only one." She took the old  
blanket away and replaced it with another one. The wolf sighed, but did not  
stir otherwise. With a smile, she patted the broad flanks and sat down in a  
chair.  
  
"It must have been quite horrible. Usually, he's changed back by now."  
  
"But I thought he automatically changed back when his reserves are  
depleted?" She nodded.  
  
"Yes, but if he's like this, it's somehow easier to keep this form. It's  
magic, Grej, not science. I do not understand it either. At least he's  
back, and in relatively good shape, which is more than we could say the  
previous time."  
  
"What happened then?" Lysander asked.  
  
"He fell asleep in the forest, which wasn't so bad, but he lay in the sun,  
and when he came back he was almost purple with sunburn." She laughed.  
"Poor Adrian, he was so unhappy, but it taught him not to go running  
without his clothes." Lysander blushed, somehow it embarrassed him to hear  
Maria speak about his father like that.  
  
"So," he said, changing the subject slightly, "when will he change back?"  
  
"I do not know. I guess we'll see. Say, isn't it time for you to do your  
homework?"  
  
"Mom!"  
  
"That you cannot go to school doesn't mean you don't have to work, my dear.  
Now don't grumble, if you come and make it here, you don't have to miss  
anything. Besides, I think he'll be asleep for some hours more."  
  
"That's not it."  
  
"I know." She gave him a friendly pat on the backside. "Go on, get your  
math's and your Latin, then I will make us a nice cup of tea." There was no  
way to evade it, Maria could be harder than rock concerning his schoolwork.  
Lysander sighed, hoped the wolf would not change during his brief absence  
and ran up the stairs to get his books.  
  
  
  
Since Patrushka did not need to enter the living room, they left the wolf  
there in front of the hearth and, in Lysander's case, continuously hopped  
down there during diner to see whether the wolf had moved or woken. It was  
finally at eight thirty PM when the wolf abruptly raised its head, shook it  
wildly and suddenly was a rather befuddled man lying in rumpled clothes on  
the rug before the fire. Lysander gave a whoop of delight, Maria closed the  
book she hadn't been reading yesterday either and squatted down in front of  
him.  
  
"Hello dear? Awake?" He blinked groggily, swayed a bit when his son gave  
him an excited hug. "I don't think so yet. Well, we can hardly let you lie  
here, can we?"  
  
"Why not? It's not as if anybody cares..." He rested his head on his wife's  
shoulder, already half asleep, but she shook him gently.  
  
"No, Adrian. Bed. Or bath, if you're up to that. No? Bed, then. Come on, on  
your feet, I cannot carry you...that's it...yes thanks, just push him along..."  
  
"I'm not a pig you need to prod." Adrian mumbled, but his voice was flat  
with drowsiness and when he was dumped on the bed he curled up, boots and  
clothes and all, and went out like a light.  
  
Maria stood in the door opening, shaking her head.  
  
"And here he is, soiling the sheets again."  
  
"You could have let him lie downstairs..."  
  
"No, Lysander Tepes, I could not. Get that impudent grin off your face,  
young man, and return to your studies."  
  
"I'm finished. No really, no need to glare, I'm done.  
  
That was marvellous, by the way, the way he changed back. He does this  
often for you? It's great! Do you think I'm able to do that too?"  
  
"I think," Maria said calmly, "that your tongue has mended perfectly, and  
that you should let the cat in. It's mewling in front of the front door."  
  
"You want to clean him up." Lysander understood. He grinned, then dodged  
the slap aimed for his ear. "Don't worry, I'm gone. Have fun!" And he WAS  
gone, merrily jumping down the stairs so that the whole house shook with  
every step.  
  
Maria laughed silently, the boy was as bad as his father. What on earth did  
the man DO on these ramblings that made him so horribly dirty? She flung  
the boots in the farest corner she could find, intending to wait till full  
light to examine them again. His shirt, pants and vest still were faintly  
damp, smudged with mud from the rain and stained with blood on one side.  
Looking at his body, she soon found where it came from, there was an almost  
healed slash over his left ribs, probably caused by a sweeping branch. It  
was quite clean, and she did not worry about it. Undressing Adrian was like  
undressing a large, limp doll, he would lie in every position she left him  
in, sleeping soundly, although his lips twitched when she kissed him on the  
mouth.  
  
"Yes, laugh, you swine! Worrying me sick again, can you! Are you awake?  
Because if you are, I would appreciate it if you replied."  
  
"Fast...asleep." Adrian murmured. Her revenge with cold water to rinse the  
mud from his chest wasn't even noticed. Horrible man.  
  
"You're not worthy of me, do you hear me? You're a nasty, selfish,  
egoistic, self-centred bully...damn it, I was worried about you!"  
  
"Don't be." Adrian said, and, with a soft caress of her hand, shifted into  
a comfortable position. To the next words Maria got no reply.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 2  
  
  
  
  
  
Adrian woke up with the strangest feeling in his head, as if it had been  
stuffed with fluff, or wool. He moved a little, could hardly repress a  
moan; wool with thistles in it. It was a feeling he'd never had before, not  
even after that one party when everybody had become so drunk the whole  
aristocracy of the neighbourhood had a hangover for two days.  
  
He was hungry as always after this kind of exertions, but somehow getting  
up was too much of a bother.  
  
'Limbs heavy, head aching...what the hell is the matter with me?' He was alone,  
although he could remember vaguely that Maria had joined him in bed at some  
part. He'd felt cold, and snuggled against her, but that was all he  
remembered. Now she was gone, which meant it must be late in the morning.  
More than twenty-four hours of sleep and I'm still tired. 'I must be getting  
old.' He laughed, felt something constrict in his chest and began to cough.  
The spasm sent tiny slivers of pain through his temples, forcing him to  
bury his face in his arms while he bent double under the attack. 'What the  
hell...?'  
  
"Good morning!" Cheerful and grinning Maria sailed into the bedroom, a tray  
with bread, coffee and fruit (she was a vitamin freak) in her hands, "And  
how do we feel this morning?" Adrian blinked the tears out of his eyes.  
  
"Awful," he said hoarsely. Maria frowned. She placed the tray on the bed,  
sat down.  
  
"What do you mean? Are you wounded? I thought I had washed all of you, and  
beside the scratch..."  
  
"Not the scratch, that's fine. There's something wrong with my head, I  
think. I..." He stopped, wrinkling his nose, then brought his hands to his  
face and sneezed. And again.  
  
"Eeww." he said disgustedly, shooting a baleful glance at Maria, who was  
giggling foolishly.  
  
"You sneezed."  
  
"I know. I've done it before, you know." He sneezed once more, and  
gratefully accepted the handkerchief Maria handed him.  
  
"Do you know how to blow your nose?"  
  
"Yes." He did, and the look of distaste never left his face. "This is  
horrible-God, even my voice sounds stupid."  
  
"It seems to me like you have a cold."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, I don't have colds." Maria rested her hand on his  
brow.  
  
"You seem slightly warm."  
  
"Maria, I do not have colds! My blood heals everything. I cannot have any  
physical diseases because my bo-body..."  
  
"Sneeze, you'll feel better." Adrian sneezed to be able to finish his  
sentence, "my body kills any disease before it can ged a hold over me. I've  
never been ill since I was a child."  
  
"Here, have a cup of coffee.  
  
This might be a full blown flu for you. Who knows? Hush, I know your blood  
heals, but you've been here around us puny mortals for...how long now?  
Fifteen years without strife? Longer? Maybe your blood is thinning out."  
  
"I still change." She shrugged, handed a second kerchief.  
  
"What would you call this yourself? I'm telling you, it's a cold. Remember,  
three days ago you visited that man from Russia, what's his name..."  
  
"Ilamodin."  
  
"Yes, Ilamodin. I heard his wife and daughter were ill with the flu. Maybe  
you got it through him."  
  
"Bud I do nod ged..."  
  
"You may have carried it with you all these days and got it because you  
were so cold and tired yesterday. It happens, sometimes." She felt his  
forehead again. "Yes, you're definitely warm, and you never had a fever  
before." Adrian waved his hand in the air.  
  
"Fine, it's a cold. What do I do to ged rid of it? And don't even start  
aboud thad evil-smelling mixture you pud on Sander's chest when he was ill  
last winter, because I will not suffer the same-" A sneeze, "-fate."  
  
"No dear."  
  
"Don'd 'dear' me with thad look in your eyes." Maria tsk-ed.  
  
"O ye of little faith. The only remedy to a chill, is to stay in bed, sweat  
it out and drink lots of tea and broth...alright, no tea..."  
  
"I don't swead much, so I can just as well ged dressed and come down."  
  
"Are you going to be stubborn?" He grinned.  
  
"As a mule." Another coughing fit kept him from speaking, and when he  
finally had enough air to breathe, Maria's smile had completely  
disappeared.  
  
"You really have it quite bad, isn't it? Does it hurt when you cough?"  
Adrian nodded.  
  
"But id's nothing I'm sure."  
  
"Maybe I should call the doctor..."  
  
"You do thad and I'll divorce you! I mean id, I don'd wand thad liddle  
creeb anywhere near my body, nod even when I'm dead!"  
  
"He helped Annette when she was ill."  
  
"Everything helbs if you believe in id enough." He blew his nose,  
incredibly unhappy. So this was being human, running noses and pain in your  
head. Maybe he should go back to blood drinking. At least then you could  
choose what fluid dripped from where.  
  
"Where is Lysander?"  
  
"Downstairs, waiting for you to wake up. He saw you change."  
  
"O, great." He snorted, and was appalled at the sound. "What did you tell  
him?"  
  
"Only that you could, indeed, change into a wolf. Which was pretty obvious.  
It's your secret, so it's up to you to tell him. But...be careful with what  
you say, or how you bring it." He leaned back into the pillow, covered his  
eyes with his wrist.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I think he wants to learn to do it too."  
  
"And what's wrong with thad?"  
  
"I don't know...it doesn't feel right. Our little Lysander...when you change it  
exhausts you. Sander is so frail, it might kill him."  
  
"Och," another careless wave, "it won't go thad far. Besides, I don't even  
know if he has the power. Although I do think he has. Nod nearly as much as  
I have, bud probably enough to do a simple changing. No bads. Badts. BaTs.  
Damn id." He blew his nose, irritably drummed his fingers on his knee.  
"Don't worry about Lysander, I'll take care of him. I only hope I won't  
infect him with this bloody cold, or whatever it is."  
  
"I could tell him to wait until tomorrow..."  
  
"No, it's alright. As far as I understand diseases, they ged you whether  
you wand it or not, and whether you come close or not. If it wants him,  
he'll get id anyway. Send him up, I'll explain whad I think suitable." He  
gave another snirf, pressed the cloth against his nose with a curse and  
sneezed explosively. "Thad is if I don't kill myself first."  
  
"You also might like to put some clothes on?" He nodded.  
  
"God, I hate this."  
  
"I can imagine. Sorry, I'm not laughing at you."  
  
"You are," Adrian muttered, and she kissed him on his hot cheek. "Heartless  
woman. Picking on an old, sick man. And that calls me swine! O, the  
wickedness of people!"  
  
"Clown." She walked to the closet, got out some comfortable clothes and  
threw them on the bed.  
  
"Put those on, old man, and eat your breakfast. I'll send Lysander in a few  
minutes. If you feel like coming down, do, but if you don't, please just  
stay in bed and sleep it off." Pressing the last button through the tiny  
slit at his throat, she tipped his chin up. "Please. And if it's getting  
worse, let me know. Don't play the hero. I do not know why you get sick all  
of a sudden, but I don't like it at all. Promise."  
  
"I promise."  
  
"Good boy. I'll check on you later." Ignoring the raised eyebrow she left  
the room. Adrian sat down heavily, staring down on his hands. Still smooth,  
no bulging veins, no spots, the fingers long and graceful. Would they once  
become gnarled and bent like an old man's hands? Was this the first  
stirring of his mortality? 'Could I be dying right now? Every cell of his  
body revolted at the idea. No, not like this. Not like this! God, I know I  
never truly believed in you, but if you exist...if you listen...please don't  
let me die like this. Not of a DISEASE!'  
  
He took a bite of bread, found it to have little taste and managed to  
swallow only a few mouthfuls. Not as hungry as he'd thought he was.  
Besides, his throat hurt, even fruit was painful. 'Don't be a sissy.' The  
orange went down entirely, and then he felt so stuffed he could throw up.  
In the past years he had gradually begun to eat more and more, until he  
finally ate about as much as a normal man and not a ten-year-old. He had  
discovered he liked eating as a pastime, especially when it tasted good.  
Before, the latter was convenient, but not necessary, food being just  
substance he needed to get energy. Now the thought of food was enough to  
make him feel nauseous.  
  
A cold. Why don't they call it a hot? The door opened, and he shivered in  
the draft. Aha, so that's why.  
  
"Dad?" He pulled his bare feet up and curled up around his knees to  
preserve his body heat.  
  
"Come in." Lysander carefully shut the door behind him, then stood looking  
at his father for a while. He was very human at the moment.  
  
"I think you ought to explain some things to me."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"O come on, dad, I saw you change back! It's a great trick. So what are  
you, if you're not a werewolf? Are you a...god? or a sorcerer?" Adrian  
laughed, choked, began to cough.  
  
"A god?" he gasped. "No, not precisely. Not a god." Still chuckling, he  
rested his head on his knees, knuckled his temples. "And not a real  
sorcerer either. Lysander tell me, do you remember anything about a...castle?  
A big, dark castle and a tall man with a red-black cloak?"  
  
The boy sat straight, eyes wide, a dark corridor, a statue of a man with a  
cloak, long canines...the bat with the answers...But the images retreated into  
his dreams, and he shook his head with a frown.  
  
"There is something, but it's very vague. I'm sorry."  
  
"It doesn'd matter. You were very small. Thad man was my father. His name  
was Vlad Tepes, bud he was mostly known as Count Dracula."  
  
"What!?" Adrian winced.  
  
"Don't shout."  
  
"You're Dracula's son? B-but I thought...Dracula was a vampire, wasn't he?  
But I thought it was a legend, a game...I thought Riff had made it up..."  
  
"Riff made id a game?" There was a certain tone of amusement in his  
father's voice.  
  
"Well, yes! He called it vampire hunting, and he had a whip, and I always  
thought it was odd to charge a vampire with a whip, as everybody knows you  
have to beat a stake through their heart. I used to play the vampire,  
because my name was Tepes too, and because I was much faster than anyone  
else...are you alright?"  
  
"No, Sander, I am nod alrighd. Would you mind?" He blew his nose-thankfully  
the rest of his healing factor prevented the skin from getting sore-cleared  
his throat and tapped his son on the chest. "You, my boy, are Dracula's  
grandson. That might mean you have some of the powers I have; it might also  
mean you have only a fraction, your speed, your ability to absorb  
knowledge...but nothing more. I'm willing to find out what you have. Now,  
before you set fire to the bed in your excitement, don't think it'll be  
easy. To me, it is straining. To you, it might be even more. Do you  
understand, Sander? It can kill you. and if you do not have it in you at  
all..."  
  
"I think I do have it in me." His eyes met his father's steadily. "In fact  
I'm quite sure. I can feel it." Adrian snorted, though more to get some  
oxygen than in derision.  
  
"I'm sure you can. Thousands of lunatics can, every month. And when they  
try to fly they all drop as dead as you will, if you try it out.  
  
Listen to me. This is no game. I realize, to you this is incredibly  
exciting, and I can hear you think: oh, how wonderful, I could really  
impress people with this! Isn't it?" Lysander bowed his head, blushing.  
That was exactly what he had thought. "And of course you think that, I did  
the same when I was your age. But the trouble is, little Lysander, that  
people don't take nicely after wild ones like me. One calls witchcraft,  
only one, and it's over. If you grew wings like an angel it would be  
different, but as a wolf...they would shoot you. So even if I were to teach  
you how to become a wolf, you can never show id to anyone. Not even Riff."  
  
"And Richter, and Grejcnim? They know."  
  
"Because I could not hide id from them. Richter bead my father, and I  
helped him. Grejcnim got me oud of a wolf trap seven years ago-why do you  
think he suddenly came to work for us? He was looking for a job, and he'd  
seen me as a wolf. The safest thing to do was to take him into my service.  
  
If you were to learn how to change, you'll have to keep id a secred. You  
could never do id, because if somebody catches you..."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Do you? I almost god stoned to death before I understood." He shivered,  
both with the memory and the chills. It was only then that Lysander noticed  
his father was ill, and it amazed him. Adrian was never ill. So yesterday's  
storm finally broke him, he thought with a strange sense of satisfaction.  
Somehow it made him, well, weaker. More human. Damn it, I knew it all these  
years, and it took him to morph into a wolf to find out for real! I must be  
blind. In his enthusiasm he forgot everything else the man said, including  
the stoning.  
  
"When will you teach me? First you'll have to get well, of course...but you  
WILL teach me, won't you? please? I know I can't ever show anyone, but I  
need to know if I can do it. You can come into that, can't you?"  
  
"Of course." He stared at his son through the fringe of his lashes, leaning  
back in the pillows. Little Lysander, his bastard son, just like himself. A  
bit uneasy with some kind of anticipation he could not identify, he waved  
his hand in dismissal. "I will teach you when I'm well again-which I hope  
will be within the next twenty-four hours. For now..."  
  
"All right!" he flung his arms about his father to give him a quick hug,  
then broke free and skipped out of the room. "Get better soon! Good health!  
Bye! See you later! Do tell me if you feel up to it!"  
  
"Good bye, Sander," Adrian smiled. He closed his eyes. Twenty-four hours.  
Much too long. I can't stand this filthy slime business another minute. But  
as he drifted back to sleep, he was painfully aware the disease was  
spreading through his blood, and there was nothing he could do about it.  
  
  
  
Lysander was too pent up to sit still for long, he jumped around the house  
like a frog with the hiccups, took now this in his hands, then another  
thing, but he couldn't concentrate. The only thing he could think of was  
the wolf, paws growing, stretching, parting in fingers, the snout...all his  
envy for Riff was gone, replaced by a burning wish to be able to do that,  
to change. It consumed him, filled him with a wild joy he wasn't able to  
express. Finally he decided to take a walk outside in the snow to cool  
down.  
  
"Don't catch a cold." Maria said caustically, and handed him his coat when  
he would have gone outside without it. "One is enough for now." He shrugged  
into it, then slammed the door behind his back.  
  
'Wolf...wolf...wolf...and he said something about a bat too...imagine, a bat! I  
could fly! Damn it, why did you have to get sick now! I want to learn how  
to do it.'  
  
He stumbled in the snow, but the smile did not waver. What was a tumble  
when one was a part vampire? Yet the vampirism was not what appealed to  
him, that was the thought of the wolf. Not even the power he could have,  
only the fact it was possible.  
  
"And I have it in me," he said to himself. "I know it. I won't let dad  
down. I swear it." In an impulse he cupped both hands in front of his mouth  
and let out a howl that resonated through the whole forest. Lysander Tepes  
had finally found his destiny.  
  
*  
  
  
  
At four, Christian came skiing down from the Belmont estate to inquire  
after his uncle's health and to speak to Lysander. More the latter than the  
first, as his uncle's health usually was more than perfect, but this time  
he was in for a surprise. Lysander was not home, and Adrian sat with his  
legs pulled up on the sofa, nose red, eyes too bright and testy face  
splotched with fever.  
  
"Good God! what happened to you?"  
  
"Whad, my boy," Adrian replied acidly and rather hoarsely, "does id look  
like?"  
  
"He's being a terribly hard-headed fool," Maria informed her nephew, "being  
down here when he should be lying in bed. But I can't get it into him to  
lie down." She sighed dramatically. "It's been hell today, with Sander so  
energetic his hair's standing out, Adrian as active as a hearth-cloth and  
everybody snowed in...would you like a cup of coffee, Chris? It must be  
terribly cold outside." Christian accepted gratefully.  
  
"Yeah, well, mom packed me in with so much authority I almost believed I'd  
just turned seven again, so I haven't been cold..." he laughed, slightly  
embarrassed; Annette's motherly love was slowly stifling him, and he had  
been looking for a place of his own the past summer, without finding one  
that suited him. Nobody doubted that Riff would be gone within a year  
though, and already Annette shed hot tears by the idea of missing her  
eldest, perhaps most beloved son.  
  
"But Adrian, you're actually sick? That must be the first time in at  
least...ten years. I cannot remember you've been ill one single time..."  
  
"Don'd rub id in." The man put one hand against his head, caught himself  
and snatched it away, placed his arm deliberately on his lap. He clearly  
was in the foulest of humours.  
  
"So even vampires can get ill." Adrian jumped straight as if slapped on the  
rear. "O come on, you cannot expect me to keep it up much longer, can you?  
Christ, I'm not so dumb I can't come to the right conclusions if you wear  
blue ribbons in your hair!" He actually was angry now. "Hello? I can read?  
I am not particularly stupid? There is a whole bloody library in our house  
describing people drinking blood, changing into animals and healing like  
worms?!" He dimmed his voice when he saw his uncle narrowed his eyes in  
either pain or anger, and he did not want to be the cause of either. It was  
only that he felt left out, and irritated at not being trust. "Not to  
mention a not very great holiday in Castlevania when I was a small child."  
  
"And you knew this how long?" Christian shrugged.  
  
"A few years. I suspected something was strange about you for much longer,  
but I was sure when I found a book you lent my father, Romanian-"  
  
"...Princes." Adrian sighed. There was an irritating little rasp in his chest  
when he did that. It made him cough. "Yes, I remember. The painting."  
  
"The resemblance was too great to be a coincidence. When I saw that  
painting, everything came back to me, and everything made sense. The next  
morning there's a huge wolf lying in the shed with a blue patch in the neck  
and nobody screams murder but my mom even puts a BLANKET over it! I was  
pretty sure then. So I asked father, and he told me who you were, and that  
I wasn't to speak about it with anyone. And I won't, I promise. I just..."  
  
"Wanted to show thad you know. Id's alright, I should have known you'd come  
to that conclusion in the end."  
  
"Why didn't you tell me? Don't you trust me?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. I would trust you with my life, if the need arose. Id  
just seemed the right thing to keep id silend." He cleared his throat,  
absentmindedly massaging his temples. "The less everybody knows, the safer  
I am, and with me my family. Not everybody is as enthusiastic about having  
a half vampire in the neighbourhood, as you can probably understand. Hell,  
even Lysander knows his father is a Dhampire only since yesterday evening.  
Alcander knows nothing. Nor will he, if it's up to me."  
  
Maria came in, carrying the coffee.  
  
"It wouldn't surprise me if Patrushka was ill too, tomorrow." She looked  
from one face to the other, made an 'ah!' movement with her mouth and  
handed the cups to the two men.  
  
"Did anyone die, or have you finally guessed your uncle's secret?" Chris  
grinned.  
  
"The latter."  
  
"Good." She looked at her husband, worry apparent on her face, but smiled  
at Chris as soon as she caught him staring at her. "And how's your dad,  
feeling better?"  
  
"Yeah...well, not really. He says nothing, but he can hardly see for the pain  
in his head. He would have come himself, but mom wouldn't let him go, and  
so he sent me." He looked around. "Where IS Lysander?" Maria shrugged.  
  
"Howling in the woods, pretending to be a wolf. He'll be back before  
dinner. Which reminds me, are you staying for dinner? You're welcome to  
stay, we have enough food-if you like stew, that is?" She grinned, knowing  
that Chris would eat anything. He grinned back, blue eyes sparkling.  
  
"I'd love to." At that moment, Adrian sagged sideways on the couch, head  
lolling limply on the arm, and lay still, eyes shut.  
  
"Great," Maria said, placing her cup on the table, "then you can help me  
carry him to bed first."  
  
  
  
When Lysander came home, ice-cold and ravenous after a whole day in the  
open air, he almost bumped into his cousin who just entered the house  
accompanied by doctor Charles Damien, a Frenchman who had fled the war and  
was the only doctor Adrian ever allowed near him-to talk to. His heart  
skipped a beat at the sight of the man, and he ran the last steps to the  
door.  
  
"What's happened? What are you doing here, is mom ill? Or dad, has it  
gotten worse? What's going on here?"  
  
"Calm down, Sander, it's probably nothing..."  
  
"Like hell! Where's Mom?" He wrung himself past Damien and ran inside,  
again almost making a tumble when Maria quickly tripped down the stairs and  
ran into him. "Mom, what' happened?"  
  
"Nothing that cannot be mended." His mother replied briskly. "Ah, there you  
are. If you would follow me, sir...Get out of my way, Sander, and be quiet!  
You'll wake the dead, and I'd prefer it if you didn't wake your father."  
  
"Dad..."  
  
"Young man, if you..."  
  
"What's wrong?!" Lysander Tepes was working himself into a full blown  
temper tantrum, and Chris deemed it necessary to stop him. He took his  
cousin by the arm, pulled him away from the doctor. "Let me go. Chris, what  
happened?"  
  
"Nothing serious. Stop that! You're hurting me. Sit down. Adrian is fine,  
he just doesn't want to wake up, that's all. Nothing to worry about, when I  
was small, he used to do that all the time."  
  
"But what happened?"  
  
"Take your coat off. There. I was here, drinking coffee, and he suddenly  
passed out. I'm only a few minutes back from getting Damien. Really, it'll  
be alright. Just wait here until they come back. You can't be of any help  
if you start screaming at him."  
  
  
  
Damien curiously put one hand on the man's pale forehead. It was hot, but  
even as he stood there he had the idea it was cooling down. He pulled on  
eyelid up to look at his pupils, but his irises had completely rolled up  
and he could not see them. Sitting down next to his patient, he took his  
stethoscope, placed it on Adrian's chest, listened. Apart from a slight  
rasp in his lungs, he sounded perfectly fine. He touched the smooth flesh  
right above the heart. Warm, but not alarmingly so.  
  
"I cannot find the reason why he should have fainted," he apologized,  
clipping the words off with his sharp accent. "The fever is notoriously  
down, and I cannot find any signs of serious infections. If he had  
developed pneumonia, it certainly wasn't a severe illness." Why can't  
doctors talk normal? He's hard enough to follow when he speaks normally.  
  
"What do you mean, he was burning up when I left him to get you!" Damien  
held an inviting hand above Adrian's head. She placed her own palm against  
his cheek, then looked up, disbelieving. "He's cool. It's gone! What did  
you do?"  
  
"Nothing, I can assure you. If I hadn't known for certain he had a fever, I  
would have thought you were mistaken." He felt again, and this time his  
fingers met cool skin. "It seems he won't need my help after all." A highly  
interested expression spread over his bearded face. "Très curieux. Je ne  
comprends pas...votre mari-"  
  
"Romanian please, mister Damien. My husband is much better in French than I  
am, I'm afraid. I do not know how this could happen either, but since  
everything seems to be fine now, I think all he needs is a little sleep,  
don't you agree?" Damien nodded hesitantly, torn between his curiosity and  
his manners. Maria smiled faintly. The last she-and Adrian!-needed was a  
doctor with an interest in the mysteries of a Dhampire's inhuman body.  
  
"Would you like a cup of coffee, doctor?" He could not decline, and  
followed her sullenly down the stairs, where Lysander burst loose like a  
bullet from a gun to run the stairs and check on his father.  
  
"Let him go," said Maria, taking Christian by the arm. "He won't do  
anything rash, I doubt he could even wake him if he wanted." Besides, she  
liked her son's reaction. It was not often that he showed so much feeling.  
However much she loved him, she wasn't so blind as not to notice Lysander  
was a rather selfish, thick-headed youth. Yet this anxiousness about his  
father proved different. He was a sweet boy after all. Pushing the doctor  
gently to the living room, Maria smiled, not afraid for the first time in  
what seemed a long time.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 3  
  
  
  
What if he doesn't wake up? How on earth am I going to learn how to change  
then? Nobody else can teach me, and I can't do it on my own...  
  
Lysander sat on the chair next to his parents' bed, gnawing, ala Alcander,  
on a broken shirt lace, looking at his father's sleeping face. He had been  
looking for more than two hours. He had, once, slapped the man in the face,  
hoping to wake him and blame the slap his fantasy. It had not worked.  
Adrian was lying in what could only be called a torpor, breathing so slow  
it was hardly visible, body limp, skin cool and dry. He could be dying or  
only resting. Patience was not exactly Lysander's strongest point, he sat  
there fidgeting, wondering if something had finally done his father in.  
  
Maria said it was useless to sit beside him and wait, for she knew that  
when he went into these kind of trances it would take some time to get out  
again (what on earth did his parents DO to each other that caused TRANCES?)  
but the boy was so anxious the man would never wake up again that she let  
him go. Now it was half past nine in the evening, Christian had gone home  
after dinner and Maria sat downstairs counting and subtracting expenses  
from annual income. Not that there ever was a shortage; somehow there was  
always money for a new dress for Maria, a holiday in the city, even a  
horse.  
  
Where does it come from? God knows dad cannot make that much cash with  
whatever it is he is doing. Maybe...but it was COUNT Dracula, and Counts are  
rich most of the time. Does that mean dad is a Count too?  
  
"Damn it, Dad, can't you wake up? I need to talk to you!" But Adrian slept  
on, arms crossed loosely over his chest, as comfortable in bed as he had  
been in his coffin.  
  
  
  
This time leaving sleep was distinctly more pleasant than it had been the  
last time. Apparently, the wool had decided to leave his head along with  
the disgusting moisture in nasal, pharyngeal, and God knew what more  
cavities. Actually, he felt fine, only a little confused at how he got  
here. He turned his head and smiled when he saw Maria, or rather part of  
Maria's tousled blonde hair. She seemed to feel his gaze, for the mop of  
curls moved and one green eye peered through the tangles. Adrian smiled  
wider. He couldn't do this in public because of his fangs that were still a  
bit longer than the canines of ordinary people, but at the moment he did  
not care.  
  
"Good morning."  
  
"Early morning." Maria corrected. From somewhere deep under the blankets a  
hand found its way up to the surface and finally came to rest on his brow.  
"Good. No more fever."  
  
"I told you I never got ill."  
  
"Think again, sweetheart." Maria murmured with a hint of satisfaction,  
"Yesterday you fainted dead away in the living room, hot as a brick, and  
you got this close to having a letting by doctor Charles Damien."  
  
"What!"  
  
"O yes! Chris and I had to carry you upstairs. It was so embarrassing..."  
Hiding a smile, she snuggled closer against his suddenly warm body. This  
had nothing to do with fever. Without looking, she knew he was beet red in  
the face, his usual reaction at being caught helpless or in a humiliating  
position. That would teach him to scare her half to death!  
  
"You didn't really let that little frog..."  
  
"No, darling, I did not." She rolled onto her back so she could look him in  
the face. A healthy pink blush still covered his cheeks. "I would never  
expose you to any doctor. But you were so hot, Adrian...I burned my fingers  
when I touched you. I didn't know what to do."  
  
"Did he...examine me?" The thought alone was appalling.  
  
"Swiftly, yes, but at that moment the fever'd dropped dramatically, so I  
gave him a cup of coffee instead-Adrian, what's happening? Why did you get  
ill, and why are you back to normal now?" He shook his head.  
  
"I honestly don't know. It's not important anyway. I'm hungry, I think I'll  
go down and raid the pantry." Maria smiled; Christian's expressions always  
sounded so funny coming out of the Dhampire's mouth.  
  
"Watch out for Patrushka, she's vicious in the morning."  
  
"Not half as vicious, my darling, as I am when I am hungry. Besides, if I  
changed in a wolf she'd run screaming out of the kitchen the moment I  
walked in."  
  
"Yes, you do that." Maria retorted. "I'm sure Grejcnim is a wonderful  
cook." He kissed her swiftly on the nose before rising. He looked down on  
himself.  
  
"You undressed me."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Did Damien..."  
  
"No, he did not see you. I wanted to feel your flesh when I touched you,  
not cloth." She pulled the blankets over her head, chilled even by looking  
at him standing naked in the not-so-warm bedroom. "Go on, have breakfast.  
Take something for me up if you feel like it, God knows I deserve it after  
these days."  
  
"Yes ma'am. Anything else?" Her chuckle rose up from under the layers of  
wool and silk. It brought goose bumps to his skin, although they had  
nothing to do with the cold.  
  
"A little proof of your being healthy would be nice..."  
  
"Sex, or changing?"  
  
"Let's find out after you bring me breakfast in bed." Obediently Adrian  
donned a robe and went down to take care of the feeding matter.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
It was well into the morning when he finally made it down, and by that time  
Lysander was ready to explode like a high-pressure kettle. He had been  
waiting. He had been listening. He had heard noises and he had smiled to  
himself. Now, the time for smiles was over, one more hour and his nerves  
would simply snap.  
  
"Dad, we have to talk." Adrian raised his eyebrows.  
  
"We do?"  
  
"Yes. You promised you would..."  
  
"Should I remind you I have just been ill-severely ill, I might add."  
  
"You look perfectly alright now." And if you could screw mom for more than  
three hours you must BE perfectly alright too. But he did not say that. He  
had been taught respect, both by his upbringing and his father's hard  
hands. Adrian did not mind intelligence or wit, but he could not abide  
insolence, especially not in his sons. Hard, but reasonable. And that was  
probably the only reason Lysander adored him. Now more than ever. It was  
not very hard to imagine him as a Count, or even as a vampire. Lysander's  
attentive eyes picked up all the little things he usually took for granted;  
the smoothness, the colour-changing eyes, the small fangs. He drew his  
tongue along his own teeth-small, sharp teeth, rather like a fox's, and  
knew he would be able to draw blood with a good bite too.  
  
"Please, Dad?" Adrian sighed.  
  
"Fine, pester me as usual. What is it you want to talk about?"  
  
"Well, the wolf part of course! You told me you could teach me..."  
  
"If you have the power."  
  
"I have it, I know I have it. I tried, yesterday, but I haven't got a clue  
how to change-but my chest got all warm and all the colours seemed to  
shift..."  
  
"You get that when you hold your breath for too long." Adrian said with a  
smirk. Lysander looked insulted.  
  
"It was not because of that, and you know it."  
  
"I do?"  
  
"Father!"  
  
"All right!" he threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "You have the  
power. You are a born shape-shifter, much better than me. Vlad Tepes  
himself would come begging on his knees to get some of your strength.  
  
Listen to me, Sander. This is not one of your games. This can be  
dangerous."  
  
"I don't care." No, Adrian thought, studying his son's serious face, he  
doesn't. He craves it like water. And who am I to forbid him; if he cannot  
do it, he will not, if he can, he has the right to know how to do it.  
  
"Very well." He stood up, unfolding his long legs from underneath him.  
Lysander came about to his shoulder. Just like me, when I was a child.  
Although I was taller than he. Poor Lysander, I'm afraid he'll never be  
more than average. Alcander, now, he has the building of a true athlete.  
And with a look at his eldest son's hungry eyes: Lysander knows. It's  
eating him inside, the wish to be stronger, better than anyone else. Just  
like my father...  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"Into the woods." He spied around for a blanket, found none, ran up the  
stairs and returned with a thick woollen plaid in green and brown hues.  
Ignoring Lysander's questioning glances he folded it and stuffed it under  
his coat (no more cloaks as they grew old fashioned), then opened the door,  
after writing a quick note to Maria. He hid a smile; the poor thing was  
exhausted. "Well, come on." The boy hastily followed him.  
  
"How are you going to teach me?"  
  
"I have no idea whatsoever."  
  
"Then what do you THINK you will do?"  
  
"We'll see."  
  
"Daaaad!"  
  
"Lysander!" The mockery left his face as he turned to look his son in the  
eyes. "Listen, this isn't something like mathematics. It's something you  
have to do yourself, and I can tell you from the start that it will be  
difficult. I don't know what will happen, hell, maybe nothing. Maybe I  
cannot help you at all. I only know that I could not change until I was  
about fourteen years old, and my father had to help me. With him, it was  
like he lifted some kind of shroud from my mind, and after that I knew how  
to change. What I am going to try is to do the same for you."  
  
"Do you think it will work?" So much hunger in his voice. Adrian hesitated,  
but the boy was old enough to deal with the truth.  
  
"No. I think you haven't got enough power to make the transformation. But,  
and this is a very big but, so don't look so desperate, you've got enough  
stubbornness to best a whole herd of donkeys, so perhaps you can do it on  
will alone. As I said, I do not know, but we can try, can't we?"  
  
  
  
Under the trees, far away from eyes that should not see, the snow was  
frozen and white like the clouds. Only two pairs of foot-prints broke the  
smooth surface, leading to two figures who were squatting opposite of each  
other.  
  
Although his eyes were closed, Lysander was distinctly aware of everything,  
the melting ice under his knees, the clean smell of the forest, the  
numbness in his fingers and the soft touch of his father's hand on his  
forehead. Normally Adrian's skin was cooler than his own, now it seemed as  
if he were burning. The only warm spot on his body was that tiny pressure  
point on his brow, the rest was cold and getting colder. He hoped his teeth  
wouldn't start to chatter, it would be embarrassing.  
  
"Pay attention, Sander, or I'll stop right now."  
  
"I am paying attention!"  
  
"No, you are not. Concentrate. Think about the wolf, not about the cold. I  
want you to visualize every little detail, every aspect of a wolf. If you  
cannot recall a real wolf, think about what I looked like, if that's easier  
for you." Lysander smiled, but it was indeed quite easy to remember Adrian  
in canine form. His brows knotted in concentration as, very slowly, a  
creature formed in his mind, like a three-dimensional picture. It was  
almost frightening how real it was, and how easy when it finally came to  
him: a wolf, large, white, with very human eyes and a very canine snout,  
the long, wiry paws, muscled body, tail, very important, the tail...  
  
"I see him," he whispered, "I see you!"  
  
"Change him a little," Adrian whispered back, "change him until it isn't me  
anymore. This wolf is YOU, Lysander. Change him into YOU." Again the boy's  
eyebrows drew together, sweat formed on his face. His eyes moved behind his  
closed lids, as if he were dreaming. If he tried very hard, Adrian knew he  
could see the wolf-picture Lysander was making too, but that would be an  
intrusion he was not prepared to make. As it was, he pushed all his  
strength into the skull under his fingers, hoping to help. In his thoughts  
he went through the same rituals he made Lysander go through now, what he  
always did when he changed.  
  
"Is this you, this creature? Does it have your eyes, your face? IS THIS  
YOU?" Lysander hesitated. "Is this you?"  
  
"Yes...no. It...it isn't me. It is a picture."  
  
"No, it is not. Can't you feel your four feet standing in the snow? You  
have fur, Sander, and the breeze is stirring it, can't you feel that? That  
wolf, my son, is you. Place your consciousness in that body-do you sense  
the gravity changing? Your flesh is morphing into something different-no,  
don't fight it! Change, Sander, change! You're changing! Keep going!"  
  
"It h-hurts!" Lysander gasped. Under his skin, his bones were shifting;  
Adrian could see them move, arms, legs, beneath his hand bone-ridges  
expanded. Not a wolf yet, far from that, but he changed!  
  
"Just take it easy, you have all the time in the world...easy, Sander. Feel  
the change, slowly, paws, pelt, snout..." He grasped him by the shoulders to  
hold him upright, keep the shaking body from collapsing. Tears streamed  
down Lysander's cheeks into tufts of fur.  
  
'Paws...pelt...but it hurts, it hurts so much...snout...paws...' His fingers dug into  
the frozen ground, hard nails rending the earth. 'Pelt...' from deep inside of  
him hundreds of tiny razors plunged to the surface, broke out of his skin.  
  
"Sander!"  
  
'Snout?' He was panting now, breath coming in painful sobbing heaves, but he  
would not give up, he would not!  
  
"Sander!" He cried out in pain as rough hands shook him, and his eyes shot  
open. Adrian stopped shaking him, but the pain went on, and the wolf was  
still inside of him.  
  
"Let him go," his father told him. His voice was strangely hoarse, and his  
complexion was a dead white.  
  
"S-snout..."  
  
"No, you've got to let him go. Now, Sander." Hot fluid dripped down his  
face/maw. "Remember I told you to do as I say? I command you to let it go.  
Now."  
  
"I...I can't..."  
  
"Yes, you CAN! Let it go. Throw it out, you're yourself again, just  
yourself. A human being. Human. Let him go, Sander." The boy let out a  
quivering sigh.  
  
"Help me?"  
  
"Of course." He stroked the fluffy, wet hair from the deformed forehead,  
pressed his fingers to the skin. "Let it go." Lysander's eyes closed. For  
one moment Adrian thought he was going to fall asleep in this godawful  
form, but finally, first slowly, then so fast he could hardly keep track of  
it, all the changes disappeared. He reached out to gather the fainting boy  
in his arms, pulled him close, wrapped him in the blanket and his own coat  
and his body, everything to get him warm again. Lysander was crying softly,  
more of exhaustion than out of pain, Adrian thought, but he whispered  
soothing nonsense to calm him, and risked a small flame ball to melt the  
snow in front of him so he could wash the bloody sweat from his face.  
Humans were not supposed to sweat blood. 'Humans,' he chided himself, 'are not  
supposed to change!'  
  
"It's alright now, Sander, everything is alright."  
  
"I can't...I can't do it..."  
  
"No, you can't, but you got very far."  
  
"But I CAN'T do it!" He stirred in his arms, too weak to beat his fists on  
the ground yet too furious to lie still. "I couldn't...I want to change, Dad!  
I was so close...why did you stop me? I was so..."  
  
"You were so close to death I had no choice, Lysander." Adrian wiped a  
moist hand over his son's cheek, showed it. His palm was covered with red.  
"You see this? That's yours. I told you there was the probability that you  
wouldn't be strong enough. Well, you obviously could not make it, so that  
means..."  
  
"NO! I can't...accept that!" He tried to push himself upright and failed  
miserably. "I can't! I CAN change, I know that! I felt it, Dad, I FELT it!"  
  
"I know." He lifted the boy in his arms, cradling him like an infant. With  
his parch-white and tear-streaked face, he looked smaller than ever. "And I  
am sorry. I know you wanted the power very much."  
  
"But I have it, Dad, I really do." Adrian shook his head.  
  
"You lack Chaos. Your mind is strong enough, but your body simply cannot  
handle the change. I don't want you to die because you refuse to give up in  
time-I love you too much for that. Do you hear me? I don't want you to try  
this ever again, not until I think you have a chance. Power is great but  
it's not worth your life." He knew Lysander did not agree.  
  
"Do I? Still have a...chance?"  
  
"Perhaps...you still are very young. Maybe the Chaos grows when you grow  
older. Maybe not. But I want you to swear you will never ever try to change  
on your own. I want your word on that."  
  
"I swear," Lysander mumbled. Energy dissipated with his anger, he was  
absolutely drained. Not even the fact that he was being carried like a  
child could rouse him enough to try and walk. 'I was so close,' he kept  
repeating to himself. 'Sooo close. I could almost touch it, that power...that  
strength. How can he keep away from it? It's so strong! But I was this  
close, and I will touch it, once. Not now, but I swear I WILL touch it!'  
  
  
  
*  
  
When the Dhampire arrived back at the house, Lysander was fast asleep and  
limp as a rag doll. Most of the blood had been scrubbed away now; at first  
sight he only looked seriously ill instead of dead. Which, Adrian thought,  
was a good thing, since Maria would not be particularly happy when she saw  
him. He felt a little guilty, having promised he would take care of the  
boy, but he couldn't have known it would go so wrong, could he? It wasn't  
as if he had not done everything in his power to help...  
  
He was lucky enough to avoid his wife the first few minutes,  
which gave him the time to strip, clean up and put Lysander in bed, but  
just as he carefully tucked the blankets in around the boy's shoulders she  
walked into the room. Her eyes grew wide.  
  
"Ly-what happened to him? What the HELL did you DO, Adrian?"  
  
"I helped him change," the Dhampire replied quietly. He stroked a stray  
curl from the boy's forehead.  
  
"And it went wrong. Well, I could have..."  
  
"No, it did not go wrong. He did wonderfully." He shook his head, an  
expression of awe on his pale face. "He is...strong. Not in the power, but in  
his mind-damn it, I've never seen anyone whose mental control is so..." he  
fluttered his hands as he was unable to find the words he sought. "So  
enormous. No one is supposed to want something this badly. He was ready to  
give his life for the power, Maria. If I hadn't stopped him, he would have  
torn himself apart to change." Maria sat down rather abruptly.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I told him how to change. He did so. He failed. And then he did not give  
up, as he should have. His body could not take the change, so I told him to  
stop, but he was so busy convincing himself he could do it, he didn't even  
hear me in the beginning. Don't worry, he's not permanently hurt, only a  
few small bleedings. I'm not that incompetent."  
  
"I know you are not..." She hesitated. "Is he really that set on changing?"  
Adrian nodded. Both thought the words they did not wish to speak aloud: he  
looks like his grandfather.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
It was almost dawn when Lysander blinked, not yet truly awake, but reacting  
before his mind could take over his body. The world spun dizzily into  
focus. The first thing he became aware of, was the painful emptiness of his  
stomach, the second, when he made a move to rise, was a deep, throbbing  
pain in every bone he owned. Moaning softly, he fell back, wondering what  
had happened. Memory came in a rush, and with it another kind of pain: the  
agony of failure. No matter what he had said, he knew he would never change  
again. It was too painful, too humiliating. Not enough Chaos, his father  
had said, and with a bitter clarity Lysander knew he was right.  
  
And so I will always be little Lysander, the eldest of the Tepeses. The  
small one. The effeminate one. No! I will not let it come that far! I will  
kill myself first.  
  
A high squeak of the door alerted him, and he hastily blinked his tears  
away. Adrian slipped into the room, studied him for a minute, cold face  
devoid of any emotion.  
  
"What do you remember?" Not 'How do you feel?' or 'Are you all right?' or  
even 'Are you awake?', but it was exactly what Lysander expected his father  
to say.  
  
"Everything. From your finger on my forehead to me changing back again. My  
bones..."  
  
"Are not broken, only strained. Here," he handed him a cup with warm broth  
that looked strangely red in the early light-just as Adrian looked  
particularly pale this morning, "drink this, it will make you feel better.  
No, now, Sander, before it loses its strength."  
  
"What strength?" asked Lysander while he took a sip. It tasted salt,  
nothing special. Adrian shrugged.  
  
"You also recall the promise you made me?"  
  
"Ye-es."  
  
"Good." The man sat down on the edge of the bed and waited until his son  
had swallowed the last of the soup. Then he went on, "You're probably very  
hungry right now, and you must feel like a whole herd of horses ran over  
you. That will pass quite soon, although you shouldn't be surprised walking  
will hurt the next few days." Lysander played with the cup, turning it  
round and round in his fingers. "What is it?"  
  
"Chaos."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"You told me I did not have enough of it. Where do I get it?" His father  
laughed softly.  
  
"You don't 'get' Chaos just like that, child. You have to make a deal with  
it, which, by the way, I urgently advise you not to do, or be born with it,  
like I was."  
  
"But Vlad Tepes had it."  
  
"Yes, he made a pact with Chaos."  
  
"And he had a castle that was Chaotic too."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Where is this castle situated?"  
  
"It used to be close to Warakya. I know what you are thinking, and no,  
Sander, that won't work. With the death of my father, the castle crumbled.  
What is left on this plane is as Chaotic as any other debris."  
  
"So there is no way I can achieve more Chaos." Lysander said flatly. Adrian  
nodded. "Does Alcander have any Chaos inside of him?"  
  
"No."  
  
"None at all?"  
  
"No. He resembles his mother in that part."  
  
"So I am the only one-apart from you of course-in whom Dracula's power  
still lives." Adrian cocked his head.  
  
"What do you want to say with that?"  
  
"Nothing..." He pulled a face as innocent as he could. His father was not  
fooled.  
  
"If you think researching that man's history will give you clues, you're  
wrong. Face it, boy, you're HUMAN, no matter how much you hate that.  
Forswearing things, drinking blood or killing yourself will not change  
that."  
  
"How does one become a vampire, then?" Adrian's eyes flashed with something  
much akin to pain before they grew so icy Lysander had to look away.  
  
"That is none of your business!"  
  
"You don't drink blood, but if you're a vampire's son-"  
  
"I will not discuss this with you," Adrian snapped. Unconsciously, he  
rubbed the palm of his left hand. "Believe me, you don't want to know."  
  
"But I do!"  
  
"Then read the Belmont journals." He stood up, cool mask once more in  
place. "I'm sure Richter would love to tell you some things. Things about  
whips, and what to do with them."  
  
And with these cryptic words his father left him alone, sitting in his bed,  
wondering what on earth the man was talking about.  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 4  
  
  
  
Heavy rains replaced the snowfall the next few days, as Lysander lay in bed  
and tried to brood out some way to gain Chaos. He talked to his mother, but  
she seemed so distressed he brought up that subject he stopped  
interrogating her, yet inside he never gave up searching, questioning, how  
do I gain Chaos? Where can I get it without selling my soul? Not from the  
castle, obviously. It's gone. Damn it, why can't I remember more of it?!  
Chris was there too, wasn't he? Yes, and he was older. He should remember.  
Maybe he knows how I can acquire it, or maybe Richter does. But Dad looked  
so strangely when he told me to ask him-something's wrong with that, I'm  
sure of it.  
  
Fortunately enough, Chris came to check on him the same day, as he always  
did when Lysander was ill. Not that that happened often, for while he was  
not physically strong, Sander had been ill precisely three times in his  
whole life, and then it was more an attack of school-revulsion than  
anything else. Feeling as if your entire body was bruised was quite a  
change, an unwelcome change, but a change at least, and Lysander wallowed  
in his mother's concern. Christian, when he came, opened the door as softly  
as he could, forgetting about its terrible squeak, thus alerting his cousin  
of his arrival. Immediately the boy let himself sink deeper into the  
pillows, then turned his head slightly and greeted Christian with a  
suffering smile. The more in pain he seemed, the more likely it was he  
could get Chris talking, which was exactly what he wanted.  
  
"Hi," he whispered. The Belmont guiltily sat down on the edge of his bed,  
flushing when Sander winced.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"It's nothing."  
  
"How are you doing-and what happened anyway? All your father said was that  
you'd had an accident."  
  
"I had." It was something he and his father had discussed earlier that day.  
The less people knew about the Tepes's ability-or non-ability in Lysander's  
case-to change, the better. It was best to pretend he had had a bad fall,  
which was exactly what he told Chris. The man shook his head with a soft  
laugh.  
  
"It really isn't the best time of the year for your family, is it? Adrian  
falling ill, you falling down..."  
  
"Rotten weather, dreadful cold..." Lysander added. He grinned. Chris grinned  
back. "I'll be back on my feet within a week-but I'm glad you came, it's  
awfully boring in here."  
  
"Thank you." The boy giggled, bit his lip when a flash of real pain shot  
through his ribs.  
  
"You're welcome. Chris, I wanted to ask you something.  
  
Can you...do you remember the castle? I mean, you told me about it long ago  
when I thought it was part of your game, but do you really remember it?"  
Christian nodded slowly. "Can you tell me more about it?"  
  
"I don't know. I can't remember much of it-and what I remember wasn't that  
pleasant either."  
  
"What about my...my grandfather?"  
  
"I was terrified of him." Lysander's eyes widened. His cousin was not  
afraid of anything!  
  
"Yes, I really was. He was...Evil. Cruel. He killed a woman in front of my  
eyes and he used me, my father and Adrian as pawns in his little game. I  
don't understand your fascination! Vlad Tepes was scum and I'm glad he's  
dead, I only wish I could have done it, and made it take ages!"  
  
"Easy, Riff," Lysander hushed. "I have no interests whatsoever in Count  
Dracula. I only want to know about how my dad beat him."  
  
"Adrian wasn't the one to beat him, that was your mother and Natalia  
Sotinsk. And a priest called Miceadu, but he died fourteen years ago."  
  
"Natalia Sotinsk? But she comes over every few weeks. Mom starts despairing  
the moment she sees the woman. She's silly, she can't have destroyed  
Dracula!"  
  
"Trust me, she did. Why don't you ask her yourself, if you don't believe  
me."  
  
"I do believe YOU, Chris...but...Natalia? God, I'd give Felix more chance! But  
I'll talk to her, when I get the chance. I heard she had bought a piano  
recently, and since I've always wanted to play the piano that would be the  
perfect excuse, don't you think?" Chris smiled, his irritation gone. He  
never stayed angry for a long time; it took too much energy.  
  
"Always scheming, eh, Lysander? Get better first, before you derive another  
obsession." Lysander smiled innocently.  
  
"Tell me more about the castle." So Christian told him all he could  
remember; the statues, the changing walls, the mirrors wherein your image  
did not do what you did, the paintings with moving eyes, the beautiful  
rooms wherein hideous crimes had taken place, Alice, the sound of footsteps  
in the night. The more he talked, the more he closed in on himself, legs  
crossed, arms wrapped around his body. Somehow, it all came back to him so  
vividly it seemed only hours ago, not fifteen years. He'd been just a boy,  
but the impressions the castle had made were like festering scars, bleeding  
and seeping under a thin layer of distance. He shivered, and started when  
Lysander tapped him on the shoulder.  
  
"It's all right, Riff," he said gently, hugging his cousin carefully, "you  
don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. I understand." The Belmont  
drew a deep breath.  
  
"No, you don't. You can't. Damn it, the man is dead for years and I still  
wake up screaming sometimes, as if I am a child. I was so very afraid I  
would lose you to him, Sander. I was but a child, but you were even less,  
you were completely helpless. You cannot imagine how...how...God, I don't know.  
I couldn't protect you-and you know, you were probably the only one on  
earth he would not harm."  
  
"He didn't harm you."  
  
"Not he, no..." He touched a tiny scar in his neck, an inch below his ear,  
normally hidden by his hair.  
  
"Who then?"  
  
"I don't know. I remember the castle, but not much of...how I felt. I mean, I  
do, but not what happened to me, no pain, only terror. Strange, I thought I  
had forgotten everything. The dreams didn't return until I turned sixteen.  
Almost as if something blocked them out."  
  
"Maybe something did."  
  
"Possible." They sat quiet for a while. Lysander studied his cousin from  
under his lashes, pretending to doze a little. Chris was  
uncharacteristically silent and uneasy; whatever had happened to him so  
long ago, had really hit him hard. He felt a bit guilty, rendering his  
impossibly cheerful friend so melancholy. After all, he was his best  
friend, no matter how he envied the man's length and looks.  
  
"It's over," he said firmly, "don't think about it anymore. The old vamp is  
dead, and nobody's going to bring him back anytime soon. Would you like to  
play a game of chess?" Christian nodded.  
  
"Sure. Where do you keep the pieces?"  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
It took Lysander more than a week to get well again, and after that the  
snow had melted and he could go to school again. Therefore it was almost a  
month after his original idea that he finally made an appointment with  
Natalia Sotinsk for a piano session.  
  
"You are insane," his mother said, vigorously sewing clothes. "Natalia will  
talk you straight back into bed. Piano or no, she's a shark, and if she's  
got you in her claws..."  
  
"Sharks don't have claws, Mom."  
  
"SHE has! Make sure you refuse all of her advances, or you'll end up in bed  
with her if you're not careful."  
  
"MOM! She's over fourty!"  
  
"As if she would care."  
  
"I just want to play the piano, that's all. Nothing will happen, so don't  
worry. Please." Maria gave an elegant shrug.  
  
"It's your body...but seriously, watch out. She only became more extravagant  
as she became older, so be careful, also with what you say. The last few  
years we have successfully avoided being dragged into her gossip-round, and  
I'd like to stay out of it as well."  
  
"I'll be careful." Lysander left the house with a big smile on his face.  
  
  
  
It was more than twenty minutes by horse, but since the weather had  
improved much the last week, it was a pleasant ride. Lysander was an  
excellent rider, much better than his father-which was not Adrian's fault  
but rather that of whatever horse it was he mounted because there was  
something in him that the animals sensed, and did not like. He grinned;  
whenever he and his father were out on a horse it was as if the horse and  
Adrian had made some sort of pact, both regarding each other with distrust  
and hatred, ears pressed down on one side, a threatening sneer on the  
other.  
  
'But Dad always wins, which you cannot say from Richter. It must be because  
he has a certain wolf-scent about him. I wonder, do I have that scent too?  
If I have, this old jade can't seem to get it. But...maybe it's still very  
faint. Yes, that's probably it. Not because the ability isn't there at all,  
but because it is...hidden. And maybe, just maybe Natalia has something  
left from the castle...'  
  
He arrived at the large, white house ten minutes later. A beautiful lawn  
flanked by pine trees lead to a maze, now rather barren without leaves, and  
a way around it to the front garden. He brought his horse to the stables so  
it could be watered, dried and fed and walked to the house itself. At his  
ring, a pale-faced young woman opened the door, smiling good-naturedly as  
she recognised him.  
  
"Mr. Tepes! How nice to see you. Do come in. Mama is still upstairs, but  
she will be down in a minute."  
  
"Miss Sotinsk." He took off his hat and gloves, removed his cloak and  
followed her to the sitting room. Linda Sotinsk had grown into a rather  
pretty woman, be it a little thin and shy. The voluptuousness of her mother  
was nowhere to be seen in her countenance, but she had that irresistible  
sweetness that can also be found in baby rabbits. Her hair was long and  
black, tucked up in a roll on her head. Large black eyes framed by curled  
eyelashes gazed at you like a deer's, her whole figure was small and  
fragile and looked as if it ought to be protected from every gust of wind.  
Lysander liked her. She was one of the few women whom Christian had not  
dated yet. "How do you do? I heard you have been unwell for a few days?"  
She blushed a little.  
  
"It was a slight cold, nothing more. I for myself have heard that YOU have  
been ill too, a fall, wasn't it? Are you quite recovered now?" Lysander  
waved his hand.  
  
"O yes, completely. Thank you."  
  
"Would you like some coffee or tea?"  
  
"If it's not too early I would love to have some wine, if you don't mind.  
It's still very cold."  
  
"Naturally." She took hold of a bell lying on the table next to her and  
rung it. A serving wench came in, took the order and disappeared again. She  
returned within a minute with a carafe of red wine and two glasses. "I  
think I will join you," said Linda. They had not yet taken a sip when quick  
footsteps approached the door; the next moment it flung open and Natalia  
swept inside.  
  
"Wine already?" she demanded. "Good idea, please get me a glass as well.  
  
Good afternoon Mr. Tepes! I hope you have recovered from you fall? You look  
healthy enough, I must say. It's too bad you missed my ball last week,  
there were so many people asking after you." Lysander smiled, to his  
opinion Natalia was one of the greatest women he knew. She was absolutely  
insane, but in so sparkling a way it was impossible to hate her. She had  
not changed much in the past fourteen year; although forty-seven she was  
still pretty and, as Richter used to say with a laugh, sharkier than ever.  
Her husband had died three years ago, and after the proclaimed one-year  
period of mourning she had stuffed her black clothes back into the closet  
(although black stood her very well) and thrown herself back into the race.  
It was widely known that she kept lovers like other people keep love-birds,  
flirting with every man she liked.  
  
'And does that mean she really dressed herself in man's clothing when they  
went into the castle too?' Lysander took in her slim waist, pushed-up  
breasts and elegant dress and chuckled inside. 'It wouldn't surprise me if  
she had!'  
  
"Have you seen my piano yet?" Natalia asked when her glass was empty.  
  
"No, I haven't. But I'm almost dying of curiosity." She laughed, a deep,  
throaty sound.  
  
"Come then. O Lin, could you please check on your new dress? It's waiting  
in your dressing room."  
  
"It has arrived?! Marvellous!" and she ran away, soundless as a roe.  
  
"Come," Natalia repeated, almost dragging Sander with her, "You will love  
it. The sound...it's beautiful. I can't really play anything yet, but I'm  
making huge progression-watch that plant, it'll fall over-and I'm sure I'll  
be able to play Mozart at my next ball.  
  
Here it is, isn't it lovely?"  
  
With a flourish, she pulled a thick woollen cloth away from the instrument,  
revealing an indeed magnificent piano forte.  
  
"It's beautiful," Lysander agreed. "May I...?"  
  
"Of course, of course! Here is the stool. You know how it works? On this  
side the keys are low, here they are higher, see?" She moved her hand over  
the keys, electing a ripple of sound. Lysander nodded, resting his hands on  
the piano. He played scales for a while, only half-listening to Natalia's  
suggestions. It was great to express your feelings in this way. He had been  
to concerts once or twice, and one of Christian's study friends had a piano  
as well, but not as beautiful as this one. And he had never played one  
himself. Under his thin, long fingers the music bubbled up from the keys,  
more from the inside of his own body than from the piano. Lysander played,  
unnoticeably going from experiments to real play, to classic never written  
down; it was as if it were the snares of his heart he was plucking, and not  
the piano's.  
  
'Tones...a river of sound...the sounds of the forests, the lakes, the horses  
trampling the snow. The howling of the wolves in the shadows, the owls and  
bats of the night. Why has never anyone discovered how much FEELING there  
is in a piano?'  
  
"Mr. Tepes?"  
  
'All my pain, my frustration and my hate, I can express it all, and nobody  
cares-nobody understands, it is the perfect way to tell a secret.'  
  
His hands moved over the ivory and black in a blur of motion. Both his feet  
stepped down on the pedals underneath and the music rose in decibels,  
echoing loudly through the chamber. Natalia stood as if charmed, one hand  
stretched out to touch Lysander's shoulder yet unable to interrupt him.  
Never had she heard such passion, even violence in a piano piece. It was  
almost frightening the way the boy was playing. He did not follow the rules  
to music; what he produced were the raw tones of his emotions, laid bare by  
the music, and she thought, 'what is he carrying with him that makes him  
able to play like this? There must be a storm in his head!'  
  
"Lysander. Lysander, could you please stop?" The boy looked up, no, tore  
his eyes from his hands. The music slowed down a bit, then turned back to  
the tingle-tangle of his first experiences.  
  
"I'm sorry, I did not hear you. Do you wish to play now?" Natalia shook her  
head. As Lysander stood up from the stool, she closed the piano with a  
gentle click. He seemed a bit dazed. So felt she.  
  
"I don't feel like playing at the moment. Would you like another glass of  
wine?"  
  
"Please."  
  
  
  
To his relief Linda had not returned yet. With all the music, he had almost  
forgotten his original reason to seek Natalia Sotinsk! Thinking, he twirled  
his glass around in his fingers, wondering how to start. Natalia saved him  
by asking what he had on his mind in her usual brisk way, and he grinned.  
  
"I wondered how you had conquered Count Dracula." There, it was out.  
Anxiously he studied the woman's face, afraid she would clamp shut like his  
mother or send him out-but no such thing happened.  
  
"Ah," she sighed happily, "good old Dracula. Finally someone who's  
interested. How did you find out? Your parents made me swear not to speak  
of it to anyone. Not that I've kept totally silent, of course, but after so  
many years nobody cares anymore." She gave him a pretty pout. "Evil is  
beaten, so it never existed. Ha, they'll look different when someone wakes  
the old man up again.  
  
How we beat him? Oh, it was wonderful! You see, I had taken a helmet with  
me from one of the fleshless knights in the halls, and when he tried to  
change into a bat and fly away, I trapped him under the helmet." She  
laughed out loud, and Sander joined her. He did notice, however, that her  
hands were firmly clasped together, and one corner of her mouth twitched  
nervously, even while she laughed. 'Not as funny as you make it sound, is  
it?' "After that, Miceadu gave him his Bread and Wine, and he...well, I  
couldn't see what exactly happened, but I believe he kind of...burst. It  
was rather tasteless, not a dignified ending at all." She sighed. Lysander  
had the vaguest notion she would have liked to see it end differently.  
  
"You...did not hate him?" She smiled a little, sipping.  
  
"Why should I? He never really hurt me. And he was...interesting. I was,  
and still am sorry that he was so terribly insane, since he had so much  
potential...Like your father."  
  
"I have the feeling I don't know half of my father's potential." Lysander  
muttered. "Everybody knows but me."  
  
"I think that is a bit of an hyperbole, don't you think? I daresay I am one  
of perhaps four or five people. Six, with you included."  
  
"More."  
  
"I don't think so. I truly doubt they would take such strength into the  
open. You have never seen him throwing fire balls around."  
  
"He can do that?!"  
  
"O yes. You father is one of the most interesting men I know. And his  
father, the Count, my, that man was like pure energy. I would have taken  
him as a lover, had he been interested. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Now he is  
dead and I am still alive, while he counted on another outcome." She  
grinned, amused with her own wordplay. Politely, Lysander smiled back.  
  
"Did you take the helmet with you?"  
  
"The helmet? God no! It was covered with pieces of Count! Why?" Lysander  
shrugged innocently.  
  
"I was just wondering how it would feel to hold an object from the castle.  
Chaos and such, you understand." Natalia observed him from under carefully  
lowered eyelids.  
  
"Do you now."  
  
"Well...yes."  
  
"What do you want with that experience?"  
  
"Nothing. Just..."  
  
"Experience it. I see." Somehow he had the unnerving idea that she did.  
"Well, the helmet I did not bring..."  
  
"But?"  
  
"But I did take an aguena with me, when we left the ruins. I can show it to  
you, if you wish?" Lysander almost jumped on her lap in his enthusiasm.  
  
"Do I? Of course, I would love to see it!"  
  
"Follow me then." She stood, the boy ran after her, tripping over his own  
feet.  
  
"You do not keep it here?" he asked as she opened the door to the cellar  
instead of walking to the 'treasury room'. Natalia laughed throatily.  
  
"No. I had it stored in the glass closet, but it tended to behave a bit  
strangely, and change other things, so I thought it wiser to tuck it away  
where no one would be troubled by it.  
  
Oh, to the left here, watch your step-wait, let me light a candle. There.  
Can you see better now? Here we are, no, the other way, there only is the  
wine. I'm sure you're not interested in wine, although the vintage is  
magnificent.  
  
Here. Hold this, will you." She pushed the candle into his hands, then bent  
over and unlocked one of the chests in a dark corner. "A little closer if  
you please, I cannot see my own hands. Yes, thank you."  
  
"It tended to behave strangely?" Lysander mused. "How do you mean?"  
  
"I mean that it behaves strangely. Do you know what an aguena is?"  
  
"No."  
  
"It's a bomb. A small ball with enormous explosive powers. Quite pretty,  
looks like gold, that's why I took it with me. Ah, there." Opening the lid,  
she reached down and took out a small, ironwood box. "In the beginning it  
was just that, a golden ball, but one morning I came downstairs to have a  
look at it, and it was gone-at least, that was what I thought. In its  
place, however, was a small golden block, and the saucers standing behind  
it suddenly had red flowers on the rim instead of blue ones. It was  
extremely odd."  
  
"Can I see it?"  
  
"But of course." She held out her hand and he took the box from her. As he  
opened it, Natalia went on with her story. "The next day it was round  
again, but much smaller than before. And all the saucers had changed to  
cups. I still have one, all the others changed back when I took the ball  
away."  
  
"Will it change my hand if I touch it?" Natalia shook her head.  
  
"Not that I know. I tried some things out, you see. One day I placed a  
living flower next to the aguena, expecting it to turn into something else,  
but it refused to become anything different than a rose. When it had died,  
however, it immediately morphed to a pile of dust, and the next day it was  
gone completely. It only changes dead things, no living ones." Lysander  
nodded, taking the golden globe out of its confinement. It was about as big  
as a tangerine, strangely light and warm to the touch-  
  
No, not warm, electric-damn it, it was as if he was holding a living entity  
in his hand, and its power ran through his body, through the cells that had  
protested so much at the Change...paws, pelt, snout...life!  
  
"Can I..." he hesitated. Could you ask that?  
  
"Can you what, my dear?"  
  
"Can I have it?"  
  
"The aguena?" She studied the slight young man in front of her. Lysander's  
cheeks were flushed, his pupils wide and black in those strange eyes of  
his. He looked almost drunk.  
  
"Why would you want to have it?"  
  
"Because..." Because it's Chaos, because it will help me change, because...  
"Because I need it. I want it. It needs ME." And suddenly she felt the  
rightness of what he was saying, she could see it in his face. Not knowing  
exactly whether she was right in doing this, Natalia nodded.  
  
"Sure. It only rots away here. Just...don't show your father. I'm not sure he  
would like it. I never showed it to anyone I knew he knows." Lysander  
grinned.  
  
"You can be sure I will never tell him." He cradled the thing to his chest,  
relishing the feeling of power it brought him. "Thank you. Thank you very  
much. You don't know how much this means for me."  
  
"I have the feeling I DO." Closing the chest, she took the candle up again.  
"Let's go back upstairs. Play some more piano. Have a glass of wine. I  
expect Lord Askal later this afternoon and I wouldn't want him to think I  
had amorous ideas of you...in the cellar."  
  
The boy laughed. The ball was a warm weight in his hands as he followed  
her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 5  
  
  
  
  
  
When he came home, the aguena was safely hidden in his pocket. It was hard  
not to take it out and play with it, but Lysander had the feeling Adrian  
would take it away as soon as he saw it. Why, he did not know, but he was  
sure of it. Probably because the thing comes from Natalia-or because it's  
from the castle and not of his own. Therefore he placed the golden ball in  
one of the drawers of his writing table and pretended everything was  
normal.  
  
But it was not. The moment he woke up, he took the ball from its hiding  
place to feel its warmth, when he went to school he could hardly wait to  
return to it. The ball's power made him feel more alive than he ever had,  
and when he held it in his hands, the strength in his cells throbbed to be  
let out. In the end, he could not leave his precious talisman at home  
anymore and took it with him in a small bag, wherever he went.  
  
"What is it?" Christian asked when he saw it. Lysander shrugged.  
  
"Some kind of big marble."  
  
"Can I see it?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because...because it might harm you."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," snapped Christian impatiently, "I've never been hurt  
by a ball." He held out his hand, and after a while the boy unwillingly put  
the aguena in it. It was quite small today, indeed no bigger than a marble.  
Chris rolled it around in his palm.  
  
"It feels a bit strange, almost as if there's some kind of warmth inside.  
Where did you get this?" Lysander shrugged again, his mouth a thin line.  
  
"It's mine."  
  
"Are you sure? It feels..."  
  
"Of course I'm sure! Now, give it back to me." Christian arched one  
straight eyebrow. His cousin's pale face suddenly had gone an ugly red, the  
green in his eyes flashed threateningly.  
  
"Sander," he said, startled, and suddenly worried, "what is this thing? Who  
gave it to you?"  
  
"Who cares? Just give it back!"  
  
"No. It feels wrong. I think I'll have to show it to my father..."  
  
"You do that and I'll kill you!" the boy burst out. With a cry he launched  
himself at his cousin with the meaning to grab the aguena out of his hand,  
but he should have known better to attack someone not only six years older,  
but at least twice times bigger than he.  
  
It was unclear what triggered his change, perhaps Chris restrained him too  
hard, or maybe the Chaos talisman relished the anger in him-one moment the  
Belmont was holding a wildly struggling boy, the next his hands were buried  
to the wrists in a lanky wolf's pelt.  
  
"Holy hell!" he cried, pulling back his hands just in time to keep his  
fingers from being bitten off. "Lysander?"  
  
"Ack!" the wolf barked, baring his teeth. It had Lysander's eyes, and they  
were wild and full of a hatred a man like Christian would never be capable  
of feeling. Wide eyed, he dropped the little ball on the grass. He could  
swear the wolf grinned at him, the hatred gone. As he watched, the wolf  
scooped up the aguena in his maul, wagged his tail and turned around. He  
began to run, out of the garden and into the woods, faster and faster,  
until he had completely disappeared.  
  
"Christ," Christian cursed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "that was  
close. Lysander too! With the help of that thing, I'm sure. How odd, I did  
not know you had talismans for that! Where did he get it, though?" Shakily,  
he rose, and brushed the dirt from his breeches. With every stroke his fear  
grew less, soon he was burning only with curiosity. Lysander was a shape  
shifter too! But how could he be as strong as his father if Adrian was only  
a halfling, and not even a strong one at the moment?  
  
"Who knows, he might have lost his shape already," he muttered, following  
the tracks as good as he could. Luckily the ground was soft and moist after  
the resent rain. "Adrian's limp as a dishcloth after a couple of changes.  
But who knows how long Sander could do it? Maybe he's much more powerful  
than his father."  
  
  
  
Not so very powerful, he found out, that he could run forever. Just like he  
had hoped, he found his cousin in human form, hanging against a thick tree,  
more than half unconscious.  
  
"Hello Dhampire."  
  
"Dhampire?" Lysander smiled tiredly.  
  
"Yes, I would say you are one." Carefully, he came a bit closer, but  
Lysander had spilled all his anger. His slender body was shivering in the  
cold air: he'd got wet from all the bushes he'd brushed against when  
running. "We'd better get you home. You're soaked."  
  
"As long as you keep your mouth shut about the...ball."  
  
"If you really want me to be quiet..."  
  
"I want you to swear you won't talk about it." He sighed. "Look, I had a  
little theory. To change, I need Chaos. Obviously, I did not have enough of  
my own, so then I thought about Natalia Sotinsk, and I asked her if she had  
taken anything from the castle. She had, this thing. It's called an aguena.  
And apparently my theory worked, because I changed, right?"  
  
"You tried before?" He giggled.  
  
"You remember when I had fallen from the stairs?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"That was the effect of my change."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Yes. But now I feel fine." Lovingly, he caressed the aguena with his first  
finger. "I shall have this put on a chain, so I can carry it with me."  
Suddenly his eyes went serious. "But please Chris, keep it quiet. Somehow I  
don't think my father would approve, and I don't want to lose the ability."  
  
Sometimes, Lysander could look uncannily like a basilisk. Christian nodded.  
  
"You know I would never betray you."  
  
"No," said the boy with a small smile, rubbing the aguena's warm surface "I  
know you'd never do that indeed."  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
It was past ten when the bell rung, causing Richter to look up from his  
work.  
  
"Who can that be so late?"  
  
"Who could it possibly be?" muttered his wife. "Only Adrian is fool enough  
to come through the night in this weather." She proved to be right too, for  
when she opened the door Adrian flashed her an apologetic smile from the  
darkness of his coat, as if his head was floating in the air.  
  
"Come in."  
  
"Thank you. It's cold outside."  
  
"You should stay home in this weather. Where's your horse, did you..."  
  
"I came on foot. Don't worry, I won't stay very long. I'd like to talk to  
Richter."  
  
"He's upstairs in the study." He nodded, placed one foot on the stairs, but  
she grabbed his sleeve and stopped him. "No new adventures, please? I'm  
still thankful I still HAVE him, and I don't need any more adventure." He  
gave her a patronizing pat on her shoulder, smiling with just a hint of  
contempt.  
  
"Not if I can help it, Annette."  
  
Suddenly she hated him again, and she pulled herself free.  
  
"I don't care if you can help it or not, he's not going anywhere."  
  
"I should think that is his own decision, don't you?"  
  
"Not if I can help it," she snarled. Adrian laughed, a nasty, mocking  
sound. If he wanted, he could still be pretty threatening, and somehow  
Annette never ceased to provoke him.  
  
He liked Richter, the man had guts and a refreshing, boyish sense of humour  
that made him a great companion for the moody Dhampire-but Annette, Annette  
drove him crazy. She was so...dull. Yes, she was beautiful, but unlike Maria  
all she could think about was domestics. With Maria you could wrestle,  
literally. She was like wood: malleable, but hard enough to survive storms.  
Annette was...dust. She blew away with every gust of wind, only to fall back  
in small pieces. If only she could be blown away for good...But Richter loved  
her. Silly man.  
  
"I don't think there'll be any reason to battle something, my dear," he  
said coolly, and he was gone before she could answer.  
  
  
  
"Come in," Richter said to the knock on his door. Adrian slipped inside,  
obviously in stalking-mode. He looked vaguely irritated.  
  
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" Richter smiled, as if Adrian cared  
whether he was interrupting anything or not. There were a couple of things  
that would never change, and the Dhampire's haughtiness was one of them.  
Already the man had sat down on the chair opposite Richter's, impatiently  
tapping with his fingers on his boot.  
  
"Of course not. How can I help you?"  
  
"I was wondering whether Christian could take Lysander with him to Russia  
next month."  
  
"To Russia? What's he to do in Russia?" Adrian shrugged. "Adrian. What is  
going on? I'd like to help you, but..."  
  
"I can't handle him." The other blurted out, then leaned back, chagrin  
evident in his whole appearance.  
  
"You can't handle him? What do you mean, the boy is crazy about you."  
  
"The boy," Adrian snapped, "has told me not ten minutes ago that he'd  
rather hang himself than stay another year with me in the same house."  
Richter stared at him.  
  
"He did not. You know he doesn't mean that!"  
  
"Yes, he did." He sagged a little in his chair. "I lost him, Richter. I  
don't know how, but the last few months...something has happened and I lost  
him. He doesn't listen anymore. I told him not to change, and he says he  
doesn't, but every time he comes home and I can smell the change from miles  
away."  
  
"He can change as well? You never told me."  
  
"I did not? I'm sorry. Yes, he can change. The first time it went most  
terribly wrong, but now he seems to have found a way to do it anyway-which  
is wrong, Richter! He's too weak to do that so often. But he won't listen,  
or perhaps he just doesn't understand-and I know what happens when you do  
it too often and your body can't take it anymore...but that's not even the  
worst." He bit his lip, gnawed on it until a little spurt of blood made him  
stop. "He...Lysander...you know he wants to be bigger, more powerful."  
  
"Yes, it's natural for boys of his age."  
  
"Yes. But it isn't natural for boys of his age to have the power he has.  
What if someone sees him change? And it's not enough for him, not by half.  
He wants to be like me, really like me. I am afraid he wants to go to the  
Castle. I am...terrified that he will somehow re-awake my...father."  
  
"He wouldn't! You know he wouldn't do that!"  
  
"Not?" Adrian smiled sadly. "He would do anything for power, and he would  
be an incredibly easy prey. Can you imagine, a gullible boy with already a  
hint of vampire blood and a lust for power that would be enough for a whole  
village..."  
  
"No, you can't be serious. Lysander..."  
  
"Lysander scares me. Cander is so much easier: sweet, honest, open. He  
takes after his mother. Lysander is just like my father. He does only what  
he wants, doesn't want to go to school now he's finished this course...and  
you know, that's the worst. He's intelligent, and completely ruthless. I  
can't make him do anything he doesn't feel like doing."  
  
"But what would you want him to do in Russia? There you cannot look after  
him at all."  
  
"No, but it would take him away from Romania and mostly, away from me. I'd  
rather never see him again than see him become what I have been."  
  
"O come on, Adrian, you can't mean that."  
  
"I DO! Listen, you heard Sander play, the last time you were with us,  
didn't you?"  
  
"Yes, he plays exceptionally well."  
  
"Yes, he's almost a genius. I hoped the piano would calm him down a bit,  
but he's had enough of it now. Anyway, a friend of a friend of mine  
migrated to Russia a year ago, you probably know him, Olav Lawin."  
  
"I know him. He was at Natalia's 'great summer party'.  
  
"Exactly. Well, he lives next to a church, and they have the greatest organ  
on earth there. At the moment he has a famous visitor, or that's what he  
says the man is. A musician. I've never heard of the man, but he appears to  
be a great scholar, and my plan was to let Lysander study with him for a  
couple of months, until he knows what to do with his life."  
  
"And you want Christian to accompany him?"  
  
"Yes. The only person Sander trusts is your boy. Besides, it would be good  
for Chris as well. He's going anyway, and the responsibility might make him  
a bit more grown-up." Richter sighed.  
  
"Yes, he's still a bit too childish to my taste. Frankly, I feel a bit  
uneasy about letting him go so far away on his own...This Lawin, where does  
he live?"  
  
"Only a few miles away from Tblisi."  
  
"That's good. And the boy can stay there?"  
  
"Yes. I arranged everything by mail. But I want your acceptation first. If  
you don't agree, I'll bring him myself. But I would prefer him going with  
Christian. He has more control over Lysander than I do."  
  
How terrible it must be to have to say something like this, Richter  
thought. One look on the Dhampire's face proved that it was terrible, but  
the same look also made clear that Adrian meant what he said. He loved  
Lysander more than any other person, except perhaps Maria, probably because  
the boy was so much like himself. Richter knew that Lysander returned that  
love almost lethally-but love and jealousy and hate lie so close together.  
Poor Adrian. Poor Lysander!  
  
"I will give my consent, but I must speak this through with Chris first. If  
he does not want to take Lysander along, you'll have to find another way.  
But somehow I'm sure he would love to take him. As you said, they trust  
each other."  
  
"Thank you." The Belmont waved his hand in the air.  
  
"Don't be an idiot, of course I'd help you. You saved my bloody life!"  
  
"And you saved mine, so I don't think I can make any demands on that, do  
you?" Richter laughed.  
  
"Stubborn to the death, right?" A strangely impish grin split Adrian's face  
in two.  
  
"To death and beyond, Vampire Hunter!"  
  
  
  
But he was not laughing when he ran back to his house.  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 6  
  
  
  
  
  
The big church-clock bell had sounded three times. Christian cast a glance  
at the still-closed door and sighed. They were in for over an hour now, and  
by the sound of the rising voices inside, they would be in there for at  
least another. He wandered back to the bar and ordered another glass of  
wine. It was like this every three months: the aristocracy of Crian was  
responsible for several kinds of businesses, including poverty control, the  
choosing of a mayor, the building of whatever kind of things. Mostly, they  
had to make sure no one of their group would find a way to enrich himself  
or gain too much power for the rest to fight.  
  
Christian had been invited, but since he could not even open his mouth to  
voice his opinion and was forced to sit pouting in between of two red-nosed  
lords, Richter had sent him out again, under the cover of delivering a  
message.  
  
"Great message," Christian muttered. "The message that they're all fools in  
there." He grinned when he heard the sharp, clipped voice of his uncle cut  
through the noise. Apparently Adrian felt the same. The man could not abide  
fools, and yet he had to endure this every three months. So did Richter,  
but he possessed that rare, almost maddening good humour that Chris had  
inherited of him-and Adrian did not. Up till now, he had managed to control  
himself admirably, but there was something that had fouled his mood for the  
last couple of days. When the younger Belmont had left the room he'd  
already noticed the ominous darkening in the Dhampire's cheeks: they were  
in for fireworks if they didn't watch out.  
  
"Seems the Count teaches them a lesson, eh?" the bartender winked,  
listening to the unintelligible but clearly annoyed voice. It sounded as if  
he was barking-which was not half as strange as it seemed, Chris thought  
with a grin.  
  
He did not know how close Adrian truly was to changing.  
  
Alucard had been brought up as a Count, he had been rich and everything  
he'd wanted to have he had been able to purchase with relative ease. But  
above being wealthy, he was a man of no nonsense, and it was hell for him  
to be locked up with these pompous fools who had only money instead of  
brains, and only interest for interest.  
  
"My dear gentlemen," he snarled with a strained smile, "if we could just  
listen to each other..."  
  
"The building of the dam..."  
  
"But if Koriander becomes the next officer, there will be no money for..."  
  
"As if you would care," a man with a hawk's nose sneered.  
  
"My dear viscount, I sincerely hope you..."  
  
"Gentlemen, the dam! It has to be built, or the whole west-side of Crian  
will be flooded the next time it storms."  
  
"And what about..." started Natalia Sotinsk, who, as a nobleman's wife, had  
required the right to partake in these meetings-but she was overshouted by  
lord Koriander,  
  
"First, let us handle the matter of the church..." Adrian had begun to growl  
softly under his breath. Oh, to rip out their throats...hear them beg for  
mercy...  
  
Richter laid a restraining hand on his friend's arm.  
  
"Calm down. Think about your heart."  
  
"We'd be done sooner if I shot them all right now."  
  
"Please, gentlemen, the dam..." whined one of the lesser aristocrats.  
  
"You can stuff your dam where it fits! I want to know who will take care of  
the church matters. We need to attract a new vicar now Vincente is dead. My  
vote is that Mr Belmont chooses someone from his brotherhood."  
  
"Yes, that's a good idea. Belmont?" Richter nodded.  
  
"Very well. Now, for our next point, who..."  
  
"I must object to being put to choose again. I have no time this year."  
  
"Ha! Debts is more probable!"  
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"Gentlemen..." Adrian said tiredly.  
  
"This man has insulted me! I demand satisfaction! "  
  
"Gentlemen, please..."  
  
"Duel!" the viscount cried happily, "this afternoon at two o'clock."  
  
"Deal. Who will be my seconds?" The man looked round the room, and  
immediately everybody began to talk; the noise was deafening.  
  
"A duel!" Natalia panted, "how exciting!" And that was the last straw for  
Adrian. It was interfering or exploding, and he did the only thing he could  
at the moment: he hit the table with all his might. With a loud crack, the  
wood splintered and split, leaving a gaping crack in the middle. But the  
wood wasn't the only thing that broke.  
  
In the startled silence Adrian stood up from his chair, swaying slightly on  
his feet, holding his right hand in his left.  
  
"I refuse," he said softly, "to listen a minute longer to this idiocy. Good  
day. Richter, I hope to see you tonight to hear what has been decided.  
Although I don't think I should be very hopeful, since all you idiots are  
interested in is fighting, hunting and drinking.  
  
And no," he hissed so maliciously at the viscount the man was quite taken  
aback, "I will NOT grant you ANY satisfaction on that!"  
  
With those words he left the room, slamming the door behind him. He was  
positively boiling.  
  
"Adrian? Uncle? Are you alright?"  
  
"No, of course I'm not alright!" he snarled back, then forced himself to  
calm down when he saw the shock in the youth's eyes. It was not easy, even  
though this was Christian. He simply was too furious.  
  
"W-would you like anything to drink, sir?"  
  
"Yes." Without looking at what the man poured, he tossed the liquid and  
almost choked in it. At least it helped to drown that abnormal anger. As  
his heart rate slowed down, his hand began to hurt more and when he studied  
it with a detached curiosity he noticed that the bones of at least two  
fingers and some more of mid-hand had to be broken. Little bits were  
sticking through the skin, blood seeped from the punctures. He smiled.  
'Something is definitely and seriously wrong with me.'  
  
"You will find," he softly addressed the bartender, "that the table has  
been damaged. I hope you'll be so kind as to ascribe all repair costs to  
me?"  
  
"Damaged?" the man asked incredulously. Especially for these occasions he  
rented his largest rooms with massive oak tables even pistols could hardly  
injure. He had heard a bang, but you could never know with nobility.  
"What's happened, sir? Somebody fired a pistol?" It hadn't sounded like a  
shot. Adrian smiled again, this time with true humour. They were still  
remarkably silent inside.  
  
"No, my friend, it was not a shot. Please send the bill to me. Chris, I  
need to find a doctor. Where does that little...um...what's his name...Damien I  
believe...do you know where he lives?"  
  
"Yes...yes, of course. What's happened?" Hastily he threw some coins on the  
bar, ran after his uncle. "Why do you need a doc-good God, what did you  
do?"  
  
"I bashed in the table, and my hand couldn't take it."  
  
"Bashed in...but it should! It should be healing! I've read in the books..."  
  
"Yes, I know I should be healing, nephew, thank you very much, but I don't,  
so I'll see that hateful little man and let him prod those things inside  
before they decide to stay there."  
  
Christian hailed a coach.  
  
"I thought doctor Damien saved your life when you were so ill last winter."  
  
"He decidedly did not."  
  
"But mother said..."  
  
"Your mother-" he stopped. It wouldn't do to spew his disdain for Annette,  
not to Christian. He shook his head and stepped into the carriage.  
  
"My mother? What about my mother?"  
  
"She doesn't know everything." They rode in silence for a while. Adrian  
noticed his hand had begun to swell and discolour. How interesting. It had  
never done that before with a fracture, as far as he knew. Ache, yes,  
bleed, yes, swell and discolour, no. Something was very wrong indeed.  
  
"It must hurt like hell! How can you be so calm!"  
  
"It does." Adrian replied calmly. "Crying won't make it any better."  
  
'No,' Chris thought, looking at the other man's pale but absolutely  
emotionless face, 'but it would make you so much more human. Damn it, I know  
who and what you are, and you saved my life and that of my dad, but you're  
still able to scare me to death with that death-mask of yours. Sometimes I  
think you don't care at all-about anything. About pain...love...about Lysander.  
Is it true that you send him away because you fear he'll grow stronger than  
you, or is that one of Sander's own imaginations?'  
  
"Adrian?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I...I wanted to ask..."  
  
"Then ask and stop stuttering."  
  
"About Lysander."  
  
"You don't want to take him with you?"  
  
"No! I mean yes! He's more than welcome, but...I just don't understand. Why  
are you sending him away?"  
  
"Because..." he hesitated, but then his honesty surfaced. Besides, Chris was  
Lysander's closest friend; if anyone knew about his problems with his  
father, it must be this boy.  
  
"Because he needs some time away from me. From home. I don't know what he's  
told you-something about me being scared he'll grown to powerful for me to  
control?" One look on Chris's open face was enough to prove he was right.  
He laughed, but quickly grew serious again. "Chris, listen to me. Lysander  
is growing up too fast. I don't know what happened about...five weeks ago,  
but it has changed him, and not for the better. I have the feeling you know  
much more about that than you want everybody to think-that's your choice. I  
know more than Lysander thinks.  
  
Anyway, it will be excellent for him to be away for some time, learn what  
it is like to stand on his own two feet and think about music instead of  
himself for a bit."  
  
"He told me about the organist."  
  
"Yes." Was he right, or was the flesh growing back again? "I already  
thought he'd like that."  
  
"He said he thought an organ was like a musical instrument that conquers  
thunder and makes it into music."  
  
"It is." That answer surprised the Belmont; it was not what he had expected  
from the Dhampire. "Organ music has more might than any other on earth. Why  
else do you think they play it in churches?"  
  
"Or in evil castles?" said Christian quietly. "We're here, I'll see if he's  
home. Wait here."  
  
"I'm not an invalid."  
  
"I know you're not." His patience made Adrian suddenly and painfully aware  
he was behaving childishly, so he bit his jaws together and stayed where he  
was. Things were not going the way he wanted them to, these last months. It  
was as if he was opposed in everything he did, whatever it was, and the  
worst of all was that he knew it was nobody else's doing but his own. It  
did not take a genius to notice his body was slowly but certainly beginning  
to fail him. Not growing older, just...weakening. Like that illness in the  
winter when he'd fainted-fainted! or like that evening he'd told everybody  
he was tired and would rather go to bed than walk in the forest, while the  
truth was that his legs were so shaky he could hardly stand on them, let  
alone walk. And now this. Combined with Lysander's temper tantrums it was a  
miracle he hadn't singed the nobles instead of breaking his own hand.  
  
Christian came back, waving at him to come in.  
  
"He's home-you look most awfully pale. Can I help you?"  
  
"No, thank you, I'm fine." Adrian murmured unhappily. For the first time in  
many long years he thought about the joy of hibernating.  
  
  
  
Doctor Charles Damien welcomed them with just a little more enthusiasm than  
was necessary, causing Adrian to hesitate. 'Be careful. He doesn't know what  
you are, and he's dying to find out.'  
  
"Monsieur Tepes. I heard you have been fighting. Your hand, I hear?"  
  
"Yes," Not knowing what else to do he held out his right hand, wincing a  
little as he moved. Who could have thought such little bones could hurt so  
much? Damien whistled a little.  
  
"Please, sit down. I will have to set these. I suggest you take some of  
this, it will take away the pain."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Simple laudanum, monsieur."  
  
"Laudanum? I don't think so." The doctor shrugged, used to the heroics of  
men, but Christian whispered, "Are you sure?"  
  
"Read your books better and answer your own question." snapped the  
Dhampire. He winced again when Damien straightened his hand on the table.  
Heroics indeed, if this was so bad already...  
  
  
  
"You heal very fast, non?" Damien's voice drifted through the shield he  
attempted to build around him to keep from either fainting or throwing up.  
"Look, the flesh is already growing less vivid. C'est extraordinaire, votre  
habilité de récupérer."  
  
"Yes, I know. Is it too much to assume you have finished yet?"  
  
"One more finger, monsieur. I'm doing the best I can." Adrian nodded.  
Christian stood a little to the side, casting glimpses every few moments  
but not interested enough to sit next to his uncle. He could handle blood  
well enough and had done his share of first aid when there'd be a fire in  
the village a few years ago, but this pushing and pulling at bones made him  
feel queasy. And that without laudanum! He had to confess the Count did not  
exactly look as if he was enjoying this, lying with his head on his good  
arm on the table, but up till now he hadn't made a sound, apart from a  
short answer to Damien's remarks.  
  
And the doctor kept chatting.  
  
"Mais...c'est extraordinaire! Le sang...you are healing where I am standing,  
monsieur!" He finished the last finger with a neat splint and regarded it  
hungrily. "Oh, Mr Tepes, you HAVE to give me a sample of your blood! I have  
never seen such a remarkable healing factor as yours!" Adrian shook his  
sleeve over his hand.  
  
"I don't think so, Mr Damien."  
  
"But...it could be the cure for...for everything! Imagine, preventing people  
dying of wounds, possibly diseases...oh monsieur, it would be marvellous."  
Adrian shook his head.  
  
"No."  
  
"But Mr Tepes..."  
  
"I said no!" He bit his lip, controlled himself. With his good hand he  
searched in his pockets and finally came out with his purse. It fell on the  
table with a heavy golden thud. Both Christian and the doctor blinked; it  
must be a small fortune. "Take this. Do research. Just don't mention me."  
Damien regarded him, suddenly thoughtful.  
  
"What are you, monsieur? You heal from the severest fevers, your bones grow  
back beneath my own fingers. What are you precisely?" Adrian closed his  
eyes.  
  
"I am..." he shook his head. Chris suddenly felt scared for what he was going  
to say. Like Damien, he was startled when he noticed the Dhampire's eyes  
had turned from light brown to black when he said, "I am somebody you do  
not wish to know.  
  
Use the money. Come, Chris. I want to go home."  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Alcander sat, opposite his mother, at the table, simultaneously chewing on  
his pen and doing his homework. He was always chewing on something: his  
hair, his nails, a blade of grass, candy; whether it was edible or not, in  
the end it always ended up in his mouth. Maria knew, the only person on  
earth but for Lysander, that he also still sucked his thumb when he slept,  
but since his teeth showed no extraordinary overbite, she let him. Her  
children were growing up fast enough as it was, it was cute to see such a  
big boy do something so childlike. She could at least pretend he was still  
a baby.  
  
"Cander, take that pen out of your mouth."  
  
"Sorry. I just don't understand a bit of it."  
  
"That's no reason to kill the poor thing."  
  
"Can't you help me?" He looked up at her with his best puppy-dog eyes  
expression, and she laughed.  
  
"No, I can't. it's your problem, look, I've got my own." Alcander snorted,  
a thing he had inherited from his father.  
  
"That's easy, that's knitting."  
  
"Have you ever tried to knit, my son? I didn't think so!"  
  
"Exchange problems?" the boy asked hopefully. Maria laughed again.  
  
"Alright, but don't you dare knot it up." They exchanged places, and she  
bent herself over the sums. They were very doable, even for a boy of  
Cander's age. Lysander would have no trouble with them, but then Lysander  
was unquestionably more bright than his brother. Brighter, and more  
difficult. Alcander, while not exactly a mother's boy, was a child very  
much attached to his father and mother, easy in his ways and sunny of  
temper.  
  
"He's just like you," Adrian used to say to her with an affectionate smile  
in his voice. "A happy-go-lucky songbird." Indeed, Alcander was always  
singing, humming or piping. He drove his brother mad with it.  
  
As soon as the boy had taken up the knitting he began humming softly, just  
like a cat would start purring. Another thing he had of his father: the  
habit of humming when happy.  
  
"You will not drop any lines, I hope?"  
  
"If you won't make any mistakes..."  
  
"Cander, you're just lazy. These sums shouldn't be a problem to you." She  
was serious now. The boy shrugged, neatly pulling a piece of thread over  
the pen.  
  
"I hate mathematics."  
  
"I know, but you shall have to learn how to do it anyway." He  
absentmindedly chewed on a piece of wool, puppy-dog looking again with  
large, green eyes.  
  
"Cander knows how to do maths. Cander just doesn't like doing it. Can't  
mother help Cander a little?"  
  
"Cander can take that thread out of his mouth. You're upsetting my sock."  
He grinned, spitting it out.  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
"Then you should have eaten more this morning."  
  
"You're a cruel, heartless woman! Yes I know, I look just like my father."  
  
"You don't, actually. He is very good in maths." Alcander pouted. It made  
him look like a rabbit.  
  
"That was low." Maria grinned, holding out her hands.  
  
"I know. Give me back my sock, you're ruining it and I hate knitting enough  
as it is. Look, if you have so much trouble with this, why don't you ask  
Lysander to help you?"  
  
"He's probably with Riff again. Anyway, he never helps me. He says I should  
do it myself, and that I shouldn't behave like a brainless baby." The  
puppy-dog look was now heartrending. "Cander is all alone in a world filled  
with slave drivers!"  
  
"Oh, don't be such an idiot," Maria begged, "you know I can't stand it."  
  
"I might stop...if you help me make those sums before tomorrow..."  
  
"That's blackmail."  
  
"Cander will not shrink back from anything..." Maria was saved from having to  
reply to that twinkly-eyed made statement by the arrival of her husband.  
Relieved, she stood up and went to meet him. Sometimes, she was convinced  
Alcander had a natural sense of how to manipulate people, not by their  
weaknesses but by charming them with idiocy. It certainly was hard to  
disappoint him, when he asked for something.  
  
'Boy, both my children are scary!' She thought with a smile. 'The eldest is a  
witch, plain and simple, the youngest is so bewitching I feel the need to  
cross myself when he looks at me.'  
  
"Hello, dear. How was the meeting?" Adrian shrugged out of his coat and  
handed to the ever faithful Patrushka. She noticed he was paler than usual.  
"Not so good? You did not hurt anybody, did you?"  
  
"Of course not, don't be foolish."  
  
Well, he certainly lost his good humour there...She held up her face to be  
kissed, which he did.  
  
"I walked out of the meeting before I could hurt somebody."  
  
"O Adrian, you didn't!"  
  
"I just told you I did," he snapped. "Why do you always deny what I tell  
you?" Maria's pretty face grew cold.  
  
"Don't shout at me."  
  
"I am NOT shouting!" He whisked around when he saw Alcander's slender  
figure standing in the door opening, eyes wide, slightly alarmed. Suddenly  
he felt trapped, and the change must have showed on his face, because  
Maria's next words were soft and concerned.  
  
"Are you alright? Did something happen?" He tried to flex his fingers, but  
both the splints and the pain stopped him. The flesh might have healed, but  
the bones had not, obviously. Such little bones...  
  
"What happened to your hand, dad?"  
  
'I smashed my fingers, that is what happened, son. I broke my own hand on a  
bloody table!' "I had an accident." He tried to wave it away; his hand did  
not consent. "It's nothing."  
  
"Nothing! Breaking your hand nothing? What happened?" Before he could do  
anything, he was being ushered into the room and planted in his favourite  
chair. "Do you want a drink? Or something hot?"  
  
"I think I only want to sleep." It was out before he knew it, and the look  
of horrified shock on Maria's face made him want to curl up and cry. She  
knew what he meant. He knew what he meant. Not a good night sleep. Not the  
joke he sometimes made when she exasperated him, but the real thing. The  
coffin.  
  
"I think," Maria said, very calmly, "we should have a little talk  
together."  
  
  
  
  
  
LYSANDER 7  
  
  
  
  
  
When Lysander returned to the house he found his little brother sitting in  
front of the door, in the sun, the cat Felix on his lap. He did not look  
happy.  
  
"What's wrong?" Cander shrugged. "Couldn't persuade mom to do your  
homework?" the boy smiled tightly, said nothing. "O come on, what's wrong?  
Are you mad at me?"  
  
"No,"  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"I'm not sure, but dad came home and he'd broken his hand...and he..."  
  
"He what? How?"  
  
"I don't know, but the way he looked...he frightened me." And you haven't  
even seen him as a wolf, thought Lysander. "He frightened mom too, I could  
see that. Damn it, it hasn't been the same ever since you two fought! Why  
don't you just go up to him and apologise!" Lysander's upper lip pulled up  
in a sneer.  
  
"I don't think so. He didn't apologise to me either, did he? And I was  
right, you have to admit that, he did treat me like a small child."  
  
"But you ARE a child..." Lysander rolled his eyes.  
  
"God, Cander, you're such a sweet, well brought up, obedient boy! I'm not  
an adult yet, that doesn't mean that I'm nothing more than just a child! He  
could at least have asked me if I actually wanted to..."  
  
"But you shouldn't yell at him the way you did. I thought he would kill  
you!"  
  
"Yeah, well he didn't, and he didn't hit me either. I would have hit him  
back if he'd done so!" Alcander shivered, imagining his brother hitting his  
father. Lysander would have been in real trouble then. Thank god he had not  
hit him. He did not think Lysander would survive a full dose of parental  
rage-not with Adrian being so unstable. He was silent, stroked the cat,  
listened to its purring. Different than Lysander, Alcander did not wish to  
grow up. He could still long for those evenings when he was small enough to  
be read stories in front of the hearth. Even then, there had been some  
trouble, but never so much as now. And now he could not even crawl into his  
mother's lap to cry out. No, he mourned the passage of time with a passion  
one rarely finds in children his age.  
  
Lysander, feeling his mood, sighed. He wrapped his arm around his younger  
brother, hugged him briefly.  
  
"Don't worry, I'm sure it will work out. I'll just avoid dad for a while  
and if you are especially sweet he'll come into a better mood and then I  
can come and demurely ask forgiveness, all right?"  
  
"You would?" Cander was relieved.  
  
"Sure." Absentmindedly he toyed with his necklace. "After all I want to  
leave without bad feelings..."  
  
"So you're definitely going to Russia?" A nod. "With Chris?"  
  
"Yes, he gave his consent-I spoke aunt Annette when I came looking for  
Christian." He listened attentively for a moment. "Shall we go in? I don't  
hear them shouting or something, which means that they either made up or  
that there are bodies inside now. Come, let's go in." Alcander placed the  
cat on the ground and followed his brother inside.  
  
  
  
What they found were not bodies, well, they were bodies, but they were both  
still very much alive and sat close together on the sofa. Both Maria and  
Adrian were sipping port, it was clear their conversation had ended some  
time ago and thankfully on friendly terms.  
  
"Hello," offered Alcander tentatively, sticking his head past the door. His  
parents smiled, Adrian a bit more wanly than his mother.  
  
"Come in, Cander. Is Lysander with you?" He KNOWS. He asks me, but in fact  
he already knows. He always knows everything. He nodded. His father made an  
inviting gesture with his good hand. "Let him come in too." Lysander  
entered, face an unsure mixture of defiance and anxiety. No matter what he  
said, he felt a bit nervous now. There was something in Adrian's eyes if he  
had displeased the man that always frightened him. Especially now he knew  
what he was, that darkness unnerved him.  
  
"Father?" Adrian studied him for a while, then rose, pushing himself up on  
the sofa's arm.  
  
"I want to speak to you in private." Lysander, for all his bravado, felt  
his stomach churn in sudden fear. The row they'd had two days ago had them  
both bristling with anger, but he knew, because he was not dumb, that it  
was unheard of that a child told his father that he would sooner hang  
himself than live in the same house with him for one day longer. The answer  
had been what had made him so incredibly furious, so white hot with anger.  
  
"That can be arranged." Now his knees began to quake. What if his stay in  
Russia was to become permanent? What if he really sent him away for good?  
The hand on his shoulder weighed about a ton, he felt flattened by it as it  
led him into the dining room. His voice was quivering a little when he  
asked, "Yes Father?"  
  
Adrian leaned against the door, features blank and cool. He had not  
forgiven his son yet.  
  
"I am waiting."  
  
"For...for what?"  
  
"Your apologies. I should like to hear them now." Lysander bit his lip.  
Penance was not easy, but he knew they would be standing here till morning  
if he did not said he was sorry, so he blurted the words out, "I'm sorry. I  
won't be disrespectful again. Please forgive me." Adrian sighed.  
  
"Very well. Try it again, and this time try to look as if you really mean  
it." Angrily, Lysander glared up.  
  
"I did mean it! I offered you my apologies..."  
  
"So be it," said Adrian icily, turned around and opened the door. "You'll  
hear the details of your journey from Richter." He stepped into the hall,  
but before he could walk further, two hands closed around his arm, stopped  
him.  
  
"No!" cried Sander, "Don't go, not like this! I'm sorry, I really am,  
really. Don't...don't go. I'm sorry. Please believe me." The Dhampire turned  
around. He still looked cold, but the corners of his mouth twitched with  
approval.  
  
"Good." He walked back into the room, closed the door behind him, sat down.  
Lysander sat opposite of him.  
  
"Are you?"  
  
"Am I what?"  
  
"Are you sorry too? You weren't the only one offended, you know."  
  
"Am I sorry too? I...I..." He laughed, shook his head, carefully frigid  
demeanour broken, "Yes, I suppose I am. I humbly ask your forgiveness."  
Lysander smiled back.  
  
"Given."  
  
"Good. Now, about your journey. I arranged you a passage on the  
'Magdalena's Crown', which leaves in seven days. You and Chris should be  
leaving in four to be there in time and to get the necessary stuff. Did  
Maria take you out to make you clothes yet?" Lysander nodded.  
  
"A lot of thick shirts and a coat, and new trousers-and I bought new boots  
yesterday. They should be ready the day after tomorrow."  
  
"Excellent." He stroked his bandaged fingers, then looked up and said, "You  
will like Russia, I think. I've been there once, and only shortly, and that  
was a long time ago, but I thought it was a beautiful country. As long as  
you have money, it is a pleasant country to live in too."  
  
"I hope so."  
  
"So do I. You do realise that it is up to you to make your stay pleasant,  
don't you? So please, Sander, make it worth your while. You have so much  
potential-in music and in so many other things, don't let it go to waste."  
Moved, Lysander studied his father's face. It had been a long time since he  
had heard that tone in Adrian's voice. Suddenly, he felt a strong  
determination to make him proud, to become famous.  
  
"I won't," he promised, "I swear I won't. You can count on that." Adrian  
smiled again, the wide, warm smile that could make him look so much like  
his human mother.  
  
"I'll take you up on that." He held out his good hand, and Lysander shook  
it firmly. "Now, let's return to the sitting room and be domestic for a  
change. Talking about change..." Lysander cast his eyes down. "I'd like you  
to be fair to me. I know you can change-don't know why or how so suddenly,  
but I know you can. Am I right or not?"  
  
"...Yes." The boy said softly. Eyes still focussed on the wood, he did not  
see his father's brief, relieved expression.  
  
"What? What are you, when you change?"  
  
"A wolf."  
  
"And...?"  
  
"And nothing," Sander said, looking up. "I don't know if I can become  
something else, but so far I've only become a wolf."  
  
"What enabled you to do so?" Silence. "Lysander, you can tell me. Whatever  
it is, I won't take it away from you."  
  
"You won't?"  
  
"No, of course not. It would not be right, and it could even be dangerous  
to you."  
  
"Dangerous? In what way dangerous?" Adrian shrugged.  
  
"I'm not sure...but Chaos somehow attaches itself to you. It's like me  
drinking blood-I did do that, once. Yes, truly, didn't Chris tell you?  
Anyway, there was Chaos in my body, and when I stopped drinking blood and  
went over to solid food it made me ill." He smiled in fond remembrance.  
"Very ill. I almost died. Later, Richter exorcised a great amount of Chaos  
out of my blood, and I almost died again. When it has a grip on you, it  
doesn't like to let you go. And the more you need it, the more you make use  
of it, the greater its hold on you. Even now I'm not completely free of the  
influence of Chaos, as you found out a few months ago."  
  
"So you cannot control it, is that what you're saying?"  
  
"Partly. It does not control me, and most of the time I can control it, but  
sometimes...but then I'm a half-breed, and I have made a lot more use of  
Chaos than you have...I hope."  
  
Lysander grinned.  
  
"I haven't used it that much." His father remained serious.  
  
"Keep it that way. I know it is wonderful to shift shape, but it is  
dangerous. Remember that. Now, show me what enabled you to change." He held  
out his hand, this time in command. Lysander removed the chain and the  
little bag in which he kept the ball from his neck and handed it over. He  
could not help wincing slightly as it left his possession.  
  
Adrian shook the ball into his palm.  
  
"An aguena?" he remarked. "Where did you get it? Wait, let me guess. Mrs.  
Sotinsk." His son flushed, and he clacked his tongue, half amused, half  
annoyed. "She should have been burned as a witch twenty years ago! I've  
never seen someone who is that capable of stirring up trouble."  
  
"She did save your life, didn't she?"  
  
"Natalia!? Save me? Ha! Hahahaha! She wouldn't be able to save a fish from  
drowning."  
  
"That's not what she told me," Lysander teased. His father snorted. He  
could snort in several ways, and this one was clearly contemptuous. "She  
said it was her who actually beat Dracula."  
  
"We're straying," Adrian said, rolling the aguena between his fingers.  
Lysander laughed.  
  
"Can I have it back?" he carefully caught the little ball as it came  
rolling over the table. Immediately he felt better. "And the bag, please."  
  
"I'll order some kind of hold for it, if you want," Adrian said. "So you  
can wear it like some kind of jewellery instead of a pest-prevention. A  
small golden cage aught to hold it; if it grows the grip will probably grow  
with it, if it is as Chaotic as I think it is."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"That's quite all right."  
  
They sat in silence for a moment, then Lysander rose from his chair.  
  
"Shall we go?"  
  
"Go where?"  
  
"Into the living room to be domestic." The Dhampire smiled tiredly.  
  
"Very well," he said, and followed his son to where the rest of his port  
was waiting.  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
